[Marcia Karp]

Originally Posted by Bruce McBirney

[...]
Alicia, I appreciate your kind words on the poem’s ambition, but realize you and a number of other folks felt the end of this one overshot--or undershot--the mark with a thud. So I’ll write mostly here about the concerns on the ending.

Regarding the last line, I chose the places listed there of 20th/21st-century atrocities to represent victims from different continents and of different ethnicities and races—white, black, Asian, and the American melting pot. My hope was to suggest the universality of suffering and cruelty even in our “modern” time, so far removed from the ancient place in the poem.

Perhaps their god sees far, hears cries that mourn
From Dachau, Darfur, My Lai, and New York.

Dear Bruce,
It has never occurred to me, nor am I persuaded, that the pertinent description of victims at Dachau would be white.

Best,
Marcia