I’ve recently completed reading Eugenia Semyonovna Ginzburg’s memoir Journey into the Whirlwind. What has struck me about the memoir is, in particular, Ginzburg’s reliance on poetry as a means to enduring prison, deprivation, oppression.

In several selections, she reiterates how reciting or recalling poetry–Pushkin, Pasternak, Blok, Mandelstam, and lesser-known (to us Westerners) poets such as Tyutchev, Chorny & Nekrasov–gave her hope or encouraged her to keep on in the face of awful situations, or just to remind her that others have endured harsh and terrible conditions and found the means to express themselves despite it all.

I believe poems–and art of all varieties–help us to endure. Some poets who have helped me to endure include Anna Akhmatova, Mark Doty, Mary Oliver, Gregory Orr, John Donne, Yehudi Amichai, Stanley Kunitz, Donald Hall, Emily Dickinson, Adrienne Rich, Marie Ponsot, and others. Too many to name.

Who has helped you to endure? Whose art, whose poetry, whose stories, whose music?

When we reflect on these creations, perhaps we can learn more about ourselves.