The targeted poems called for fighting against the Russian Empire and promoted Belarussian nationalism.
By keeping alive these bitter memories of our exile, and teaching them to our children, we hope both to prevent their recurrence and to recognize the miraculous continuity of our existence.
As I read the poems, I found myself thinking about what Noah must have felt as the flood waters continued to rise.
This year the festival was dedicated to the memory of Hayim Nachman Bialik, whose birth took place 150 years ago near Zhytomyr, Russia.
Zelda was a devout Jewess, a cousin of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe. Her full name was Zelda Shneerson Mishkowsky, but she only ever went by Zelda.
This is thanks to NASA's new Message in a Bottle initiative, the public can have their name engraved on a microchip in its Europa Clipper spacecraft as it heads to Jupiter's moon.
Limon's "Poem for Europa" is less a meditation on science - though its first line seems to allude to a rocket launch - as it is an ode to nature and the awe it can inspire in humankind.