Difficult Poetry

Sometimes we write about writing poetry as if writing poetry is a pleasurable activity. Then something horrible happens in our world, and se think of the poems that have to be written, and we realize that we come to poetry with fear and trembling. The act of trying to turn horror into art is painful, and can be approached with the deep reluctance that someone who does not want to have to deal with the difficult has. It is the unspeakable and the fearful that challenge us.
I read at Virgnia Tech a month ago. The reception was beautiful. I was struck by the grey brick buidlings with their hive-like gothic crevices and nooks. Watching them on television today, I experienced a strange horror and was moved by the challenge of what to say about this.
Thirty two people dead.
What is the language of poetry in the midst of such a terrible thing? We can only come at this with the uncertainity and reluctance with which we must face all human tragedy, and as poets we know that we will be entering a psychic space that can haunt us in ways that most people would rather not experience. It is our decision to take that leap and enter that space for the sake of the poem and for what the poem can do that is what I regard as the difficulty of poetry.