As to the comments about poetry, it seems to me that in rush hour traffic, for example, one might not sufficiently apprehend the marrow of poetry, but in Buchenwald…well, poetry and song are what we turn to when mere conversation no longer suffices. In times of suffering and crisis we may be forced into an attentiveness that places life and death perilously close to one another (as they are all the time, although we delude ourselves into keeping them far apart), and so as the luxury of preoccupation is removed we may long to find a place of peace, to dwell in a clearing, and to hear truth. Good poetry affords these things. What a beautiful reminder Lasseyan has offered.

“Poetry made a new place, a clearing . . . I learned that poetry is an act, an incantation, a kiss of peace, a medicine. I learned that poetry is one of the rare, very rare things in the world which can prevail over cold and hatred. No one had taught me this.”

I usually balk at such deep claims for poetry, perhaps because I have never experienced such situations of extremity, and, more likely, because I don’t think poems can/have to hold the weight of such social power. But here I love that the power comes in making “a clearing.” Yes. That is the way poetry can be “an act,” a making of a spot to stand. Indeed, “no one taught me that” is a pretty good impetus to rethink my own pedagogy.