From War to Hope: Photography-Inspired Poetry
Four poets from Vancouver-based Pandora's Collective respond to David “Chim” Seymour’s latest exhibition
Chim’s Photojournalism: From War to Hope presented a homage to the life and legacy of Magnum co-founder David “Chim” Seymour, from his photographs of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, to war-torn Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War, to his coverage of the Suez Crisis, where he was tragically killed at the age of 44. The photographs span two decades of his career and bear witness to the destruction, uncertainty, and resilience of these years.
The exhibition, which ran from April to June at the Sidney & Gertrude Zack Gallery in Vancouver, inspired a group of local poets to respond to Chim’s photographs via the written word. Photography and poetry have always been akin to each other, evoking similar processes of shaping inner perspectives through creative composition.
The subject of many of the resulting poems was Chim’s 1949 story The Children of Europe, commissioned by the newly established UNESCO to document the reality for children displaced by the war. Below, we share several of the poems composed in response to these photographs, with a commentary from Ben Shneiderman, Chim’s nephew, inviting readers to explore the images from new perspectives.
Ben Shneiderman: In Natasha Boškić’s poem “A baby,” she is moved by Chim’s troubling images of infants in war-torn surroundings, yet she finds hope in the possibilities for a brighter future.
A baby
Nothing can stop life.
In millions lost,
a few new ones will be born.
Clenched onto the dry chest
to suck in tomorrow,
or wrapped into a blanket
and lulled to sleep in a stroller.
Carried for miles,
Across the deserted city squares,
through the minefields,
through flames and smoke,
over the valleys of rubble.
To the water,
The cave
The house still standing,
Bread on the table
A shelter
A sunny tomorrow
Ben Shneiderman: Sometimes a single Chim photo led Boškić to explore its emotional impact. One of Chim’s most famous photos is from his post-World War II project for UNICEF to show the orphans of war. In this image of Tereska, she looks out anxiously, unsure if her scrawl was acceptable as a representation of her home. Boškić’s poem, “Little Red Riding-Hood,” reflects on the “endless meandering pathway” whose “white chalk should cover the blackness, but it doesn’t.”
Little Red Riding-Hood
That word “home”
that they asked me to draw,
is foreign to me.
Yet, it sounds familiar.
I try, but it is hard
when I don’t know its meaning.
The confusion grows in the small body
like a yeast for the Sunday bread,
rising, rising.
Its expansion constrained,
and can’t go further than her fingertips
— and it deflates.
Coming and retreating
Like a tide in her eyes.
The line that should take her there
becomes an endless meandering pathway,
breaking at some points, then continuing,
crossing, intersecting, perplexing…
The white chalk should cover the blackness,
but it doesn’t.
The dark still remains to look at me
from the wall.
I should remember, I think
sitting in someone’s lap,
hair brushed by someone’s hand,
bow-tied, colorful.
It’s a line and another line,
And another.
“Home,” so foreign,
Yet, it sounds familiar
As if I have heard it before.
Ben Shneiderman: The iconic Tereska photo was published in LIFE Magazine (December 27, 1948), in a 14-page photo essay with Chim’s photos, ending with the unusual request in its time for donations to help the “Children of Europe.”
The Tereska story has inspired many others, such as the German philanthropist Gregor Siebenkotten to start the Tereska Foundation to help orphans of wars in Africa and elsewhere. The writer and photo historian Carole Naggar envisioned what happened in the encounter between Tereska and her Photographer (2019), “a fiction built as a small opera.”
Boškić’s other poems examine the painful experiences of war, with the sobering realization that: “you will be brave and carry on. Time will heal all the wounds. The smile will come back, as there is no other way to exist, but to be.”
Another Vancouver poet, Bonnie Nish, also wrote about Tereska:
You draw in circles,
sketching a dream
you can no longer explain.
The lines no longer connect—
from hand to page,
from memory to place,
from then to now.
You are dreaming of what was,
but no one understands.
You can only hope—
one day,
someone will find you again.
Ben Shneiderman: In other poems based on Chim’s exhibit, K.L. Shilling wrote about the photo of a bare-bottomed child pushing a small wooden chair through a crowd:
In the street,
Sweating heat,
Life is hard, kid…
Life is also sweet.
Ben Shneiderman: Chim’s photos of children have long inspired viewers, but these Vancouver poets give us a clearer impression of what impact photos can have.
Explore more poetry from Vancouver-based Pandora’s Collective here.
