Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“‘Pillars […] for the future to come’: Engaging with The Cage Through Poetry”

In this activity, students will research, analyze, and read aloud select poetry dealing with the trauma of the Holocaust, a subgenre of poetry that is often as painful and horrific as it is beautiful. In doing so, students will connect in a more meaningful way with the The Cage’s themes of the power of Writing and Books and Humanity, among others.

Throughout The Cage, the written word—Riva’s love of books, but also her poetry—serves as a powerful force for helping Riva foster a sense of hope and remain connected to her humanity, even as she faces the most grisly and difficult circumstances as a young Jewish girl during the Holocaust.

Riva’s connection to the written word is part of a long, deep tradition of Jewish writers and thinkers, who use poetry and other writing to help cope with the atrocities they endured during the Holocaust. In the immediate aftermath of the war, poetry also helped survivors struggling to rebuild their lives to make sense of what happened to them.