Bombing Warsaw … With Poems

Nazi Ger­many invad­ed Poland in 1939 and began a ter­ror bomb­ing cam­paign of War­saw, the nation’s capi­tol. In total, the Nazis dropped some 500 tons of high explo­sive bombs and 72 tons of incen­di­ary bombs on War­saw, begin­ning the planned destruc­tion of the city.

Now fast for­ward to 2009, and we wit­ness (above) War­saw under lit­er­ary assault. Last August, 100,000 poems writ­ten by Pol­ish and Chilean poets rained down on the city. The lit­er­ary strike came at the hands of Casagrande, a Chilean art col­lec­tive that has staged poet­ry bomb­ings of oth­er for­mer­ly bombed out cities. Dubrovnik, Guer­ni­ca, Berlin, etc. Need­less to say, the project marks a protest against war, a call for peace, and a cel­e­bra­tion of poet­ry. The Guardian has more on last mon­th’s poet­ry bomb­ing of Berlin here. H/T to MS…