WEBVTT

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And thank you so
much, Julie, also

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for mentioning
In the Hour of War.

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This is poetry from Ukraine.

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So I'm going to
read this one poem

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by Lesyk Panasiuk,
whose chapbook of poems

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will be coming out in
a couple of months now.

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But this poem, just for him,
and in recognition of what

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continues to happen in Ukraine.

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"In the Hospital
Rooms of My Country."

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"Letters of the
alphabet go to war

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clinging to one
another, standing up,

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forming words no
one wants to shout,

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sentences that are blown by the
minds in the avenues, stories

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shelled by multiple
rocket launches.

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A Ukrainian word

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is ambushed-- through
the broken window of

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the letter A other countries
watch how the letter i

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loses its head, how the
roof of the letter M

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falls through.

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The language in a time of war

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can't be understood.

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Inside this sentence

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is a hole-- no
one wants to die--

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no one

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speaks.

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By the hospital
bed of the letter i

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lies a prosthesis
it's too shy to use.

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You can see the light through
the clumsily sewn-up holes

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of the letter ф--

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the soft sign has
its tongue torn out

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due to disagreements regarding

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the etymology of torture.

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There is too much alphabet

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in the hospital rooms of
my country, too much, too

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much alphabet, no place to stick
an apostrophe; paint falls off

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the walls, showering us
with words incomprehensible

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like men who, in wartime,
refuse to speak."

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