This afternoon at a panel on Whitman, the chair asked a question about poetry and war.  And we all answered properly, about Whitman and Neruda and more.  But I kept thinking about the unthinkable.  I was thinking about the fact that soldiers in our army have other professions and hobbies and there could very well be poets like Owen or Sassoon who write and die in war.  And when I got home the news came that the poet Amiram Cooper died in captivity.  

I saw it last night but it didn’t hit me.   An 85 year old poet from Nir Oz.