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Liberation

New Works on Freedom from Internationally Renowned Poets

Editor: Mark Ludwig   Foreword by: Ha Jin

An exploration of freedom by some of the world’s most celebrated poets, published for the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi camps
 
The year 2015 marks the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps and the conclusion of the Second World War. But around the world, oppressed and imprisoned people are still longing for freedom and asking, “What does it mean to be free?” This collection of poems explores that question.

In honor of this anniversary, some of the world’s top contemporary voices—including Rita Dove, Robert Pinsky, Jay Parini, Yusef Komunyakaa, Agi Mishol, Tsering Woeser, Han Dong, Ernesto Santana, and Richard Blanco—have written poems on the theme of liberation as it inspires them personally and creatively. Nearly all of their poems are published for the first time in this volume.

The result is an artistic representation of the universal yearning for freedom from twenty-five countries—and countless stories of oppression, imprisonment, and liberation. Here are Afghan women writing in secret, Tibetan and Cuban dissidents, memories and hopes inspired by topics from Fergusson to the Middle East, from illness to spirituality to joy in nature. This collection demonstrates the power of art to heal and to bring attention to freedom as a universal human right.

Lyrical, uplifting, contemplative, sometimes angry, sometimes hopeful, always masterful, these are enduring poems to enrich and inspire.
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Foreword: A Matter of Spirit, by Ha Jin

Introduction: Liberation, by Mark Ludwig

PART I
“so they might know what liberation is”

Richard Hoffman, USA
On Being Asked to Write a Poem on the Theme of Liberation

Julie Carr, USA
After Liberation

Salman Masalha, Arab, Israel
The Song About the Child

Fady Joudah, Palestinian American, USA
Libretto

Afaa Michael Weaver, USA
After Ferguson, in Culver City Studios

John Skoyles, USA
First Drink

Jay Parini, USA
The Last Resort

Luljeta Lleshanaku, Albania
The Unknown

Oliver De La Paz, USA
Dancing “fancy”

Mark Yakich, USA
Flight

PART II
“We are the drums of our ancestors’ hearts”

Rita Dove, USA
Sketch for Terezín

Richard Berengarten, England
Child Survivor’s Testimony

Anita Endrezze, Native American/European, USA
Legacy

Robert Pinsky, USA
Poem of Disconnected Parts

Diane Glancy, Cherokee, USA
Horse-Fly

Yang Jian, China
Lament

Alan Shapiro, USA
Moon Landing 1969

José Antonio Mazzotti, USA/Peru
Death by Fire

Kirmen Uribe, Spain/Basque Country
Reading About Terezín

C. K. Williams, USA
The Foundation

PART III
“No country Untouched”

Rita Dove, USA
Trayvon-Redux

Meena Alexander, USA/India
Moksha

Esther Belin, Diné (Navajo), USA
The Account of a Recent Travel

Richard M. Berlin, USA
The Fisherman

Tina Chang, USA/China
276

Kwame Dawes, Ghana/Jamaica/USA
In Waiting

Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, Tibetan American, USA
Alphabets to a Home

Carol Dine, USA
Doaa

Anita Endrezze, Native American/European, USA
There Is No Cure for MS

Inga Gaile, Latvia
Road

Jamaal May, USA
FBI Questioning During the 2009 Presidential Inauguration

Aaron Samuels, USA
October After Mike Brown’s Death

(Anonymous) Afghan Women Poets
Landays

Yermiyahu Ahron Taub, USA
Refugees from Little League

Tsering Woeser, Tibet
Traces of the Tibetan Year of the Rat

PART IV
“a ghost of gunmetal drones overhead”

Dan Beachy-Quick, USA
Poem

Marilyn Chin, Chinese American, USA
Memorial Haibun

Kwame Dawes, Ghana/Jamaica/USA
De-Mobbed

Jiri Dedecek, Czech Republic
A Lament for Military Secretaries

Ilya Kaminsky, USA/Ukraine
Momma Galya Armolinskaya

Jay Parini, USA
Sunday Morning in a Time of War

Yusef Komunyakaa, USA
The Mountain

Tina Chang, USA/China
When Every Story Begins With Wolf

PART V
“Death sails into the gilded ballroom in purple satin”

Milan Richter, Slovakia
Liberation—and Return?

Almog Behar, Israel
Those Who Return to Him Empty

Richard Blanco, Cuban American, USA
Leaving Limerick in the Rain: A Letter to Ireland

Maria Negroni, Argentina
Oratorio

Yang Jian, China
Empty Garden

Luljeta Lleshanaku, Albania
People Can Tolerate Everything...

Nick Makoha, England/Uganda
The Dark

Agi Mishol, Israel
No Casualties Reported

Robert Pinsky, USA
Samurai Song

Lloyd Schwartz, USA
La Valse

Afaa Michael Weaver, USA
Emancipation, a Remembrance

Mary J. Bang, USA
One Photograph of a Rooftop

Rita Dove, USA
Orders of the Day

PART VI
“Speak when broken”

Almog Behar, Israel
Take This Poem and Copy It

Ali Cobby Eckermann, Yankunytjatjara Australia
The Empty Cot

Joan Hutton Landis, USA
Autobiography

Agi Mishol, Israel
Mother Tongue

Myriam Moscona, Mexico
what it was

Mark Yakich, USA
For My Daughter

PART VII
“think of the trapped wren”

Almog Behar, Israel
Does Grace

Marilyn Chin, Chinese American, USA
Bamboo, the Dance

Gillian Clarke, Welsh/British, UK
Free as a Bird

Xue Di, USA/China
Radiation

Ali Cobby Eckermann, Yankunytjatjara Australia
Tjulpu

Katie Ford, USA
Good Morning

Fanny Howe, USA
Clouds

Wang Ping, Chinese American, USA
Confessions of a Ruby-throat

Tade Ipadeola, Nigeria
Songbird

Justin Quinn, Ireland
Regreen

PART VIII
“towards a promised freedom”

Francisco X. Alarcón, Chicano, USA
Long Live Life!

Julie Carr
A fourteen-line poem on independent study

Suzanne Lummis, USA
Hazel McCausland Lummis at the Arc de Triomphe

Adrian Matejka, USA
Soundtrack for Leaving Earth

Han Dong, China
Story

Richard Hoffman, USA
Rune

Wang Ping, Chinese American, USA
Sonnets from the River in Our Blood

Ernesto Santana, Cuba
The Day of Light

Dunya Mikhail, Iraqi American, USA
Ama-ar-gi

Mary Kimani, Kenya
Free, Free, Free

Liberation

ISBN: 978-080700027-4
Publication Date: 10/6/2015
Size: x Inches (US)
Price:  $16.00
Format: Paperback
Availability: In stock.