Requiem, Rwanda

“As if breaking through the distracting cacophony of the outsider’s voice, of history, of landscape, of curiosities, there come these terrible grace moments of song from the voices of Rwandans— from their memories, their hauntings, their rituals of forgetting and remembering—and in them we are reminded of the blunt truth of a human tragedy that defies language. Apol holds these moments as sacred, and in so doing she, too, becomes a witness.”

—KWAME DAWES, author of Duppy Conqueror: New and Selected Poems

As if breaking through the distracting cacophony of the outsider’s voice, of history, of landscape, of curiosities, there come these terrible grace moments of song from the voices of Rwandans—from their memories, their hauntings, their rituals of forgetting and remembering—and in them we are reminded of the blunt truth of a human tragedy that defies language. Apol holds these moments as sacred, and in so doing she, too, becomes a witness.

—KWAME DAWES, author of Duppy Conqueror: New and Selected Poems

This is a book like no other: a small collection of remarkable poems, yes, but also an encapsulated history, a treatise on the healing power of story, a guide that will serve as a model on how to engage, respectfully, with cultures different from our own. Laura Apol is one of the most courageous writers I know. Her poems are heavy with the terrible history of genocide, but they are able to carry that weight because of her clarity, her humility and integrity, her poetic grace, and her belief, not easily gained, in the redemptive power of language. I love this book, and I applaud her talent and bravery. She makes me believe in poetry again.

—LORNA CROZIER, Professor Emeritus, University of Victoria, and author of The Wrong Cat