The poems in A Machine for Remembering were drawn, in part, from the stories, memories, and experiences gleaned by Justen Ahren while volunteering with refugees living in Moria Refugee Camp on Lesvos Island, Greece. The collection began as a way of processing a personal experience but grew into a document of witness and remembering, recording in poetry the journeys of individuals seeking refuge from the violence they had endured. This is W.S. Merwin's The Lice for this generation.