Writing Poems in the Middle of a Catastrophe by Özge Lena

Writing Poems in the Middle of a Catastrophe

is like saving the oleanders
while the forest is on fire.

But their petals hold thousands
of bees around their poison-colours.

Bees mean nectar, nectar means life,
and life is always meant to be saved.

Yet the forest is an ablaze beast, too big
to be saved by you, even larger than life,

and you have already run out of water.
The only thing you can do is to save

the oleanders to save the bees
in order to save your life because

you know no other way to survive but
to write poems even in the middle of a catastrophe.

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Özge Lena is an Istanbul-based poet & writer. Her poems have appeared in The London Magazine, Abridged, Orbis, The Selkie, 14 magazine, and elsewhere across thirteen countries. Her ecopoem “Undertaker” is forthcoming in the Convergence: Poetry on Environmental Impacts of War Anthology of Scarlet Tanager Books in the USA. She was nominated both for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Özge’s poetry was shortlisted for the Ralph Angel Poetry Prize and the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition in 2021, then for The Plough Poetry Prize in 2023, and for the Black Cat Poetry Press Nature Prize in 2024.