What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump

Name: What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump
Author: Martín Espada
ISBN: 9780810140776

by Martín Espada, Julia Alvarez, Doug Anderson, Naomi Ayala, Benjamin Balthaser, Sean Bates, Jan Beatty, Tara Betts, Richard Blanco, Rafael Campo, Cyrus Cassells, Hayan Charara, Chen Chen, Brian Clements, Jim Daniels, Kwame Dawes, Chard deNiord, Cynthia Dewi Oka, Dante DiStefano, Kathy Engle, George Evans, Tarfia Faizullah, Carolyn Forché, Denice Frohman, Danielle Legros Georges, Aracelis Girmay, Ruth Goring, Adam Grabowski, Laurie Anne Guerrero, Sam Hamill, Samuel Hazo, Juan Felipe Herrera, Jane Hirshfield, Everett Hoagland, Lawrence Joseph, Yusef Komunyakaa, Dorianne Laux, Paul Mariani, Demetria Martínez, Paul Martínez Pompa, Julio Marzan, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Marty McConnell, Leslie McGrath, Richard Michelson, E. Ethelbert Miller, Kamilah Aisha Moon, David Mura, John Murillo, Maria Nazos, Marilyn Nelson, Naomi Shihab Nye, Alicia Suskin Ostriker, Willie Perdomo, Emmy Pérez, Marge Piercy, Sasha Pimentel, Robert Pinsky, Gabriel Ramírez, Luivette Resto, Peggy Robles-Alvarado, Luis J. Rodríguez, William Pitt Root, Patrick Rosal, Joseph Ross, Nicholas Samaras, Ruth Irupe Sanabria, Lauren Schmidt, Tim Seibles, Katherine DiBella Seluja, Don Share, Patricia Smith, Gary Soto, Mark Turcotte, Brian Turner, Chase Twichell, Pamela Uschuk, Elisabet Velasquez, Richard Villar, Ocean Vuong, George Wallace, Afaa M. Weaver, Eleanor Wilner, Daisy Zamora, Danez Smith, Elizabeth Alexander, Marcelo Hernández Castillo, Brenda Marie Osbey, Donald Hall, Bruce Weigl, Ricardo Alberto Maldonado, Torrin A. Greathouse, Adrian Louis

288 pages2019Curbstone PressISBN 9780810140776

Politics Poetry

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About this book

"We now live in the "Age of Trump," whether we wish to admit it or not. The backlash represented by 45 is not only political, but cultural and linguistic as well. Because Trump and his ilk divorce language from meaning, we now live in an age of hyper-euphemism, where "alt-right" refers to what everyone, even apologists, once called "white supremacy." However, as What Saves Us editor Martin Espada observes, poets have a particular gift for reconciling language and meaning, for calling things and people by their right names, for restoring the blood to words. Furthermore, poets are well qualified to document this historical moment--and the more astonishing the moment, the more surreal or ominous, the more we need poets to capture that moment in a few brushstrokes of language. The poems collected in this volume, nevertheless, are not limited to works aimed at Trump, or poems written in the wake of his election. They're not narrowly "political," nor are they all well-written rants. Instead, these poems embody or express a sense of empathy or outrage in the Age of Trump, both prior to and following his election, since it is empathy the president lacks and outrage he provokes as a result. In the tradition of an earlier Curbstone Press volume edited by Espada, Poetry Like Bread: Poets of the Political Imagination (2000), these poems speak from the heart of the communities most gravely endangered in our times, or on behalf of these communities. These poems assert our common humanity in the face of dehumanization"--Provided by publisher.