A poem for Ukraine | Artists turned war heroes | Swearing at snails | On the road in Herefordshire | Zaghari-Ratcliffe freed
Thank you to Simon Armitage for his moving poem, and to Harriet Sherwood for providing the wider context (Poet laureate Simon Armitage writes Ukraine war poem Resistance, 11 March). There is of course also the poetry written during the siege of Leningrad in the second world war – particularly poignant in the current situation.
Aileen Rambow
London
• Your editorial (10 March) refers to Volodymyr Zelenskiy as a rhetorician, war leader and former comedian. A more famous example of an artist-turned-war hero is perhaps Ignacy Jan Paderewski, the Polish pianist and composer, who in 1919 became the Polish prime minister, foreign minister and signer of the treaty of Versailles.
Trevor Lindley
Weymouth, Dorset