Showing posts with label What You Need to be Warm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label What You Need to be Warm. Show all posts

Thursday, December 7, 2023

Poetry Friday - It's A Good Question

    

            It's Poetry Friday, and Patricia is hosting HERE on her blog with loving list of all she wants for Christmas.  

            Thanks for hosting, Patricia! May all your wishes be granted!



            I had something else planned, and then I read this recent book by Neil Gaiman. Along with being an author, he is a Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. The explanation says he went to social media and asked people to tell him what they need to be warm. Thousands answered. He wrote this poem. Then 12 artists were given a part of the poem to illustrate. Considering our world's heart-breaking conflicts today, the thousands of people at our borders, and refugees in camps all over the world, it's a stunning, heart-rending book. 

           Reading this, and then watching a national news program made it even more poignant, the news showing the needs of people in my own city, state, and country, watching the combat from wars happening right now. Gaiman's words, with twelve artists illustrating a part of his poem, create a compelling message for everyone. People need warmth. They need it in varied ways, a hot potato, a kind word, or waking from burrowing "beneath blankets and comforters". They are in need!  
            Here is one sample page, art by Bagram Ibatoulline.


             And you can listen to Neil Gaiman reading his poem HERE on The Marginalian.

Finallyit brings me to consider Gaiman's question and to ask "What would you answer"?