Text: Solveig Hansen, 2022
“I am the enemy you killed, my friend.”
In rough times, we often turn to poetry — as readers or writers. Poetry speaks to emotions and its job is to try to express what cannot be said, Nancy Holmes, poet and Associate Professor in Creative Writing at The University of British Columbia, says. “Poetry is our go-to art in times of upheaval and catastrophe.” In the trenches of World War I, The Oxford Book of English Verse was a well-read book.
Addressing the Russians in the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian President Zelensky said, “You’ve been told I’m going to bomb Donbass. Bomb what? The Donetsk stadium where the locals and I cheered for our team at Euro 2012? The bar where we drank when they lost? Luhansk, where my best friend’s mom lives?” These lines tell a story and could be lines in a spoken word poem.
This inspired me to read some of my favorite peace/human poems again and search for new ones. Here’s a small collection, from what could be today’s Ukraine to World War I to the old quarters of Jerusalem to children’s voices and more.
Ilya Kaminsky: We Lived Happily During the War
Children’s Poems for Peace (an UNICEF project)
Tomas Tranströmer: Romanesque Arches
WE LIVED HAPPILY DURING THE WAR
By Ilya Kaminsky, 2009
And when they bombed other people’s houses, we
protested
but not enough, we opposed them but not
enough. I was
in my bed, around my bed America
was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house.
I took a chair outside and watched the sun.
In the sixth month
of a disastrous reign in the house of money
in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money,
our great country of money, we (forgive us)
lived happily during the war.
STRANGE MEETING
By Wilfred Owen, 1918
Two soldiers meet in an imagined Hell, the first having killed the second in battle the day before. “I am the enemy you killed, my friend.”
Here’s Alex Jennings reading the poem (full text here):
ON YOM KIPPUR
By Yehuda Amichai, translated from Hebrew by Ada Aharoni
On Yom Kippur in the year Tashkah,
I wore dark festive clothes
and ambled to the old quarter
in Jerusalem.
I stood a long time
before an Arab’s nook-shop
not far from the Gate of Shechem,
a shop of buttons and zippers and rolls of thread
of all colors, and tie-tacs and buckles.
A bright light shone forth with many colors,
like an open tabernacle.
I told him in my heart that my father too
had a shop like his of threads and buttons.
I explained to him in my heart
about all the decades of years
and the causes and the events,
that I am now here
and my father’s shop is burnt there
and he is buried here.
When I finished it was closing time.
He too pulled the blind and locked the gate.
And I went back home with all those
who went to pray.
ISN’T IT QUIET
When the Catholics have killed all the Protestants
and the Protestants have killed all the Catholics
and the Jews have killed all the Arabs
and the Arabs have killed all the Jews
and the Muslims have killed all the Christians
and the Christians have killed all the Muslims
and all the graveyards are full
and all the crematoria are burned out
and only one person is left living on this Earth
I hope to fuck they enjoy the peace.
(From See Liz, She Spins, 1997)
Children’s Poems for Peace (an UNICEF project)
Extracts:
See also: Ideas for writing poems about peace
ROMANESQUE ARCHES
By Tomas Tranströmer, 1989, translated by Robert Bly
Tourists have crowded into the half-dark of the enormous Romanesque church.
Vault opening behind vault and no perspective.
A few candle flames flickered.
An angel whose face I couldn’t see embraced me
and his whisper went all through my body:
Don’t be ashamed to be a human being — be proud!
Inside you one vault after another opens endlessly.
You’ll never be complete, and that’s as it should be.
Tears blinded me
as we were herded out into the fiercely sunlit piazza,
together with Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Herr Tanaka and Signora Sabatini —
within each of them vault after vault opened endlessly.
Want to write your own poems? Check out this article as a starter: How to Write a Poem: Easy Tips for Beginners
Image: Nika Akin @ Pixabay.com
Z for short. 