Beyond the Flames

A woman, following a visit to Auschwitz, meditates on the possibility -- or impossibility -- of continuing to live, following the killing of millions in death camps. The subject is not new. But Louise Dupré makes this horror present again, while at the same time emphasizing the need to go beyond it. Being a parent, as is the anonymous "you" in the book, is to both witness this horror and to raise children who are unaware of this terror, whose innocence seems to make perfect victims of them. It is to hold a child "above the flames," desperately seeking to protect them and, through them, to save ourselves.

Your poem rose / from hell / one morning as words surprised you / paralyzed / in the middle of a verse