POETRY WORKSHOP
LOST CHORD
Alison Chisholm is moved by a poem about the devastation of conflict and the power of music
When the world reels from natural disaster or tragedy inflicted by the human race, writers respond by writing about it. The material that’s produced fixes events for posterity and at the same time provides catharsis for the writers. Pliny’s letters of 79 AD gave us much of our knowledge of the eruption of Vesuvius that devastated Pompeii Owen, Sassoon, Brooke and Blunden revealed the horrors of the first World War. The Hillsborough disaster prompted such an outpouring of reaction from the people of Liverpool that a file filled with their poems was lodged at the local radio station. After the tragedy of 9/11, Simon Armitage wrote his long and intensely moving account to be delivered alongside footage of the terrorist attack and its aftermath.
The piece of writing may emerge immediately after the event, or be allowed to settle in the mind, to resurface days, weeks or years later. There’s a different energy produced by these differing timescales. Such writing may be rooted in a profound desire to inform, record and share; but the writer’s approach to the subject needs to find a more concrete focus than a mere listing of facts. The focus will filter the event through an individual mind and voice, so that no two poems about the same disaster will be the same.