In a more benign world, art would no longer be necessary, because each particle of life, every human emotion, would be in itself a poem, the vastest of symphonies, a mural of skies, the cordilleras, the Pacific, the seashores and deserts. Then, between poetry and love, we would not require the mediation of words.

~Raúl Zurita, Purgatorio 1973

Purgatory is the seminal literary text provoked by the military coup that overthrew the newly elected democratic government of Salvador Allende in Chile of 1973. At the time, Zurita wrote poetry in an act of defiance to being silenced and to exercise his freedom, or what he lacked. Check it out if you’d like to support Chilean poetry.