Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice

Description

On April 20, 2010, nine Latino students chained themselves to the doors of the Arizona State Capitol in an act of civil disobedience to protest Arizona’s SB 1070. Moved by this action, Francisco X. Alarcón responded through a Spanish and English poem titled “Para Los Nueve del Capitolio/For the Capitol Nine.” The students replied to the poem with a collective online message. Alarcón then created a Facebook page called “Poets Responding to SB 1070” and posted the poem, launching a powerful and dynamic forum for social justice. Since then, poets and artists from around the globe have posted more than three thousand original contributions. POETRY OF RESISTANCE offers a selection of these works by more than eighty writers, addressing a wide variety of themes, including racial profiling, xenophobia, cultural misunderstanding, violence against refugees, shared identity, and much more. Contributors include distinguished poets such as Francisco Aragón, Devreaux Baker, Sarah Browning, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Susan Deer Cloud, Sharon Dubiago, Martín Espada, Genny Lim, Pam Uschuk, and Alma Luz Villanueva. This anthology powerfully articulates the need for change and the primacy of basic human rights. POETRY OF RESISTANCE is a poetic call for tolerance, reflection, reconciliation, and healing.

About the Author:
Edited by Francisco X. Alarcón and Odilia Galván Rodríguez

Francisco X. Alarcón was a Chicano poet and educator, and author of twelve volumes of poetry, including FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF NIGHT: SELECTED AND NEW POEMS, CANTO HONDO / DEEP SONG, and BORDERLESS BUTTERFLIES / MARIPOSAS SIN FRONTERAS. He passed away in 2016. Odilia Galván Rodríguez, eco-poet, writer, editor, and activist, is the author of four volumes of poetry; her latest is RED EARTH CALLING: CANTOS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY. She was the English edition editor of TRICONTINENTAL MAGAZINE in Havana, Cuba. She facilitates creative writing workshops nationally and is a moderator of “Poets Responding to SB 1070” and “Love and Prayers for Fukushima,” both Facebook pages dedicated to bringing attention to social justice issues that affect the lives and well-being of many people.