Anne Garrels had a story this morning on NPR about poets in Baghdad:

A Shiite from the slums of Sadr City, where he lives in two cramped
rooms with several other family members, Hussein writes about a
homeland that is on the verge of disintegrating. His poetry is at once
a eulogy for Iraq, and a call for its salvation:

Peace for you, oh land of civilization, our vow is to you and will forever be, till the last breath.

Hussein’s poetry is laced with grief.

"Even if we want to write love poems, we would be fooling ourselves, because sadness haunts everything," he says.

Another poet, Sadiq Hattab, finds consolation in his imagination:

To escape from this troubled reality, the reality of explosions, if only for a few hours.