“Your voice slips like smoke
between prison bars,
a jailer lights a cigarette,
considers the burning stub.“
Enjoy this audio recording of “To Hanna Komar, Minsk, Belarus, September 2020” by Mary E. Kollar from Vol. 32:3 of CALYX Journal! Buy the full issue here.
Kollar’s poem is about Belarusian activist, poet, and translator Hanna Komar, who was arrested and jailed for nine days on September 8, 2020, while protesting the contested election and criminal acts of Aleksandr Lukashenko. More about her can be read here.
Mary E. Kollar enjoyed a thirty-year career teaching high school English and co-directing the Early Entrance Program at the University of Washington. In addition to journal publications, she published a poetry collection, Something Borrowed: Poems of a Daughter & Mother. She lives in Seattle, WA. Her blog site is Mary’s Room with a View at thoughtsafterseventy.com.