Women’s Poems of Protest and Resistance: Honduras (2009-2014)

Description

Fifty-three brave women defy death threats and gender-based violence to denounce the June 2009 military-oligarchical coup that overthrew the democratically elected president and unleashed continuing, severe repression and insecurity that has given Honduras the highest homicide rate in the world, at nearly 15 times the global average. Anthology of 131 poems written by women maquila workers, lawyers, professors, artists, students, sociologists, journalists and others, teens to grandmothers, mestizas, indigenous, Garífunas. Bilingual format, facing Spanish-English. Introductory essays provide historical context, analysis of poems, and comments on translation issues. Translated by a team of 20 U.S.-based translators. Why publish these poems now? Ø Because we believe, with President John F. Kennedy, in the importance of poetry: “When power narrows the area of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. […] The artist, however faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state.” (1963) Ø To explain, in part, the current immigration crisis in U.S. from the influx of unaccompanied children from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. What is happening in Honduras to generate this migration?

About the Author:
Lety Elvir, Editor; Translation Editor Maria Roof

Editor: Lety Elvir, born in San Pedro Sula (1966). Poet, literature professor at the National Autonomous University of Honduras, Vice President of PEN-Honduras. Cofounder of National Association of Honduran Women Writers (ANDEH). Founder of literary workshops and of civic organizations. Recipient of literary prizes and recognitions. Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence, Delaware State U (2006-2007), where she founded and directed section of “Nomadic Poetry/Poesía Nómada” in the bilingual newspaper, El Tiempo. Featured author in the anthology, Voces de mujeres en la literatura centroamericana (Voices of Women in Central American Literature, University of Alcalá de Henares, Spain, 2012). Books published: poetry, Luna que no cesa (Moon That Ceases Not, 1998, Chilean Embassy Prize); Mujer entre perro y lobo (Women Between Dog and Wolf / Between a Rock and A Hard Place, 2001); fiction, Sublimes y perversos (cuentos) (Sublime and Perverse, Stories, 2005); essay, coauthor of Mujeres en el mundo: Historia, revoluciones, dictaduras, trabajo, religión y poesía (Women in the World: History, Revolutions, Dictatorships, Work, Religion and Poetry, 2007). Editor of the first edition of the anthology, Women’s Poems of Protest and Resistance: Honduras (2009-2014), published as: Honduras: Golpe y pluma. Antología de poesía resistente escrita por mujeres (2009-2013) (2013).