Conor Kelly: “Reading reactions to last week’s mass murder in Oregon in NPR, in the Washington Post, and in other news media (then followed by more school shootings) is a depressing experience. I decided to focus, in this formal poem, on the students who died, rather than on the gun law arguments. I’ll let the reader decide whether ‘stuff happens’ or whether it is made to happen. Philosophy is for another day.” (web)
Conor Kelly: “One of the major international news stories of the week was the publication of the regular edition of Charlie Hebdo with a print run of over five million instead of the usual 60,000. The cover was a nuanced response to the terrifying events of the previous week. However, some news editors decided not to print this cover for a variety of reasons. This inverted Petrarchan sonnet with a Yeatsian title is my response to what I see as cowardice.” (website)