Description
Poetry. 7,000 SPARROWS is a meditative long poem addressed to Rafał Lemkin, the Polish-born linguist and lawyer who gave name to the crime of “genocide” and assured its irrevocable place in the framework of international law. Divided into seven parts, the poem examines genocide both as a historical act and a linguistic concept, encompassing voices from the perpetrators, victims and bystanders of past genocides. More than 50 years after Lemkin’s death ended his unceasing effort to prevent the reoccurrence of humanity’s greatest crime, 7,000 SPARROWS resurrects the questions that his life strove to answer, the primary one being: Is it possible for language to preserve our humanity in the midst of its annihilation?
