Covert Rook

In my own work, it’s the ghosts that I’m speaking to. They are my motivation, so I let it ride and I let them do their thing. The ghosts can take me to the heartstrings. - Claude Lawrence

To refuse to play the part that is expected of you is to resist transferring power to whoever is invested in your taking up that part. - Nuar Alsadir

Laughter is dangerous to the guardians of the state as to all good men, because of its tendency to get out of hand. - Samuel Weber

Laughter and levity bring about illicit sexual conduct. - Maimonides

The only part of our skeleton we reveal to others is our teeth, so when we laugh, we flash our interior at others. - Nuar Alsadir

The British call convulsive laughter corpsing, a term that derives from the frequency with which a fit of laughter overtakes an actor playing a corpse onstage. Before breaking into laughter during my talk, I was, in a sense, playing dead, if you think of dead as assuming a socialized self, pushing your emotions and spontaneous feelings underground. - Nuar Alsadir

As for poetry: I never thought that I would write about a Russian soldier who died with stolen vibrators in his hands. Now you can write about anything. Gone are taboos. There is more detail and forthrightness in the poems, the lines are bolder, wider—sometimes too bold, too wide. I want to speak louder, even louder, so that they hear me. - Lesyk Panasiuk

In occupied cities, time doesn’t exist, it is gone. War is not about time; time was completely destroyed in Gostomel, where the morning begins by chopping wood and lighting a fire to cook food. - Olena Stepanenko

All the words now wear a military uniform. I set aside metaphors to speak about the war in clear words. - Daryna Gladun

Women working on trams talk about their work tomorrow. “Don’t worry, they promised not to bomb,” one says. - Katrina Haddad

Alone in quarantine I’m a bad witness. - Marilyn Hacker

Everyone brings their one thing when evacuating. Not the most necessary thing, but their thing. - Andrei Krasniashikh