[quote]Originally posted by Susan McLean:
"I don't think that any subjects should be set aside just because one cannot do justice to them. It is in the nature of death camps that no one can do justice to them. But I think that everyone has an obligation to remember them, and if poetry, which is the most moving kind of language, does not even make the effort, all humanity is the poorer."
Susan, I agree with most of what you say here. I'm not sure , however, "that no one can do justice" to death camps. A survivor certainly would have the best chance, especially if the survivor were a poet. But a poet with a powerful imagination should be able to render art that captures the horror. We also have plenty of relatively current genocides for information, and we have literary examples, Conrad and Czeslaw (Robert M. mentioned Celan) for example.
Many poets have written about death or dying with nothing more than their imaginations available.
Bob
[This message has been edited by Robert J. Clawson (edited July 15, 2002).]
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