By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Theodore Adorno famously said that to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. The idea that the atrocities of the Holocaust can be responded to through art – and especially the idea that words can be found to respond to such horrific events – has persisted in the popular mind.
And yet for some poets, to say nothing has seemed a dereliction of the artist’s duty, especially for those poets who view the writer’s role as one of bearing witness.