What times are these...

Carolyn Forché has edited an anthology of many passionate voices of the 20th Century – 140 poets with stories to tell – stories to read.

The first time it was reported that our friends were being butchered there was a cry of horror. Then a hundred were butchered. But when a thousand were butchered and there was no end to the butchery, a blanket of silence spread.

When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out ‘stop!’

When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.

Bertolt Brecht [Trans. John Willett], from “When Evil-Doing Comes Like Falling Rain”

Burning the Dreams

on a spring morning of young wood, green wood
it will not burn, but the dreams burn.
My hands have ashes on them.
They fear it
And so they destroy the nearest things.

Muriel Rukeyser, from “Breaking Open”

Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness, Ed. Carolyn Forché (Norton, 1993)

Ten Books That Will Ripple Your Mind ... No. 4