“Dramaturgy,” by Jason Schneiderman

Poetry faculty member Jason Schneiderman was recently featured in Poetry Daily. Read an excerpt of “Dramaturgy” below:

Dramaturgy

I’m writing a play about a Kommandant at Auschwitz

who recognizes one of the Jewish prisoners

as a famous poet, and as the Kommandant

has poetic aspirations himself, he pulls the prisoner

away from the work detail to receive poetry lessons

from the celebrated Jewish writer. The bulk of the play

is their discussions of poetry, which the poet

is initially reluctant to have, the power differential

being so stark, and though he flatters the Kommandant

at first, when he begins to see his Nazi pupil’s

true devotion to the art, as well as his untrained

and untapped talent, he goes to work in earnest…

 

Read this poem in its entirety here: https://poems.com/poem/dramaturgy/