Ilya Kaminsky at Asymptote:
I have a friend who, before she ran from Kyiv as Russia bombarded the city in early 2022, spent weeks shivering in the bomb shelters as the city was shelled.
At first, she first recited poems by heart, and then she began to translate the poems she remembered.
That is how she got through the hours.
Who is to tell me after this that poetry doesn’t matter?
Opening Dante’s Inferno enrolls the reader in a millennium-long class in surviving hell with poetry, through music, imagery, and poetry’s willingness to look without flinching at the details of both terror and wonder: in a strange way, this book is a call to courage.
more here (via The Book Haven).