In the Margins

Some years ago, when a young filmmaker made a documentary about a poetry group—four women midway in a decades-long journey together—the poets came up with a name: In the Margins. In the margin of professional lives and friendships, in the margin of births and deaths and raising children, in the margin of war and resistance to war. The poets don’t mean to suggest that the writing of poetry is peripheral, but rather that it is integral to those narratives.