Poetry Presents: Eliza Griswold

“We talk about survivor’s guilt, but not about observer’s guilt. For journalists, this is particularly acute, as we are paid to watch suffering and paid more during war. For poets, it’s even worse,” writes Eliza Griswold in the January 2012 issue of Poetry. In her notebook-style essay, Griswold tells of her experiences on the island of Lampedusa, the entry point for Libyan refugees crossing the border into Europe. She examines the difficulty of writing prose or poetry about human crises. In an effort to understand the problem, she asks a priest on the island “if, in his opinion, Lampedusa is more Europe or Africa”:

“Geographically this is Africa but politically this is Europe.”
“What side of the story is the press missing?”
“The human side,” he says.

Eliza Griswold speaks about what journalists have described as the “human tragedy” of the Lampedusa refugee crisis, discusses her life as a journalist and poet, and reads her own poems. A reception follows.