View this email on a browserForward to a friend
April 5, 2016
 

Transit

 
Rita Dove
illustration

About This Poem

 

“Many Jewish musicians and composers were interned at Theresienstadt, the ‘model’ concentration camp showcased by the Nazis when the Red Cross arrived for inspection: New clothes were issued, fresh produce displayed in the ‘marketplace,’ while the musicians played concerts and marched in mock parades. As soon as the inspectors left, grim reality returned—including death marches to mass extermination sites like Auschwitz. Even so, those whom Fate spared one more time continued to compose and perform for their fellow inmates; they even staged operas from memory. How does one retain a human yearning in the midst of such horror?”
—Rita Dove

 

Rita Dove is the author of Collected Poems: 1974-2004 (W. W. Norton, 2016). She teaches at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

 

Photo credit: Fred Viebahn

Poetry by Dove

 

Collected Poems: 1972-2004

(W. W. Norton, 2016) 

 

"sorrows" by Lucille Clifton

read-more

"Duende" by Tracy K. Smith

read-more

"Little Box" by Marilyn Nelson

read-more

Poems on the Air

 

Every weekday at 6 p.m. (EST) during National Poetry Month, WQXR 105.9 FM will feature a special reading of a poem from the Poem-a-Day series. Tune in or visit wqxr.org.

Advertisement Advertisement