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.
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