I Go to the Ruined Place
Contemporary Poems in Defense of Global Human Rights
Poetry Anthology edited by
Melissa Kwasny and M. L. Smoker
About the Book
Poetry Anthology | ISBN 978-0-9800289-7-3
$18 US | $25 Canada
6 x 8 inches | 168 pages
For each book sold, $2 will be donated to the Bonner County (Idaho) Human Rights Task Force.
When we made our call for submissions for an anthology of poems in defense of human rights, the allegations of torture were foremost in our minds. We knew people were outraged, saddened, profoundly moved and ashamed. But we also wanted to reach people who had suffered violations of their own rights from circumstances across the globe, or whose families had, or for whom preventing or healing these violations had become a life’s work. We drafted our call loosely: We are increasingly witness to torture, terrorisms and other violations of human rights at unprecedented degrees. What do our instincts tell us and what is our response to these violations? What is our vision of a future wherein human rights are not only respected but expanded?
What we received were both first hand accounts of violation—see prisoner Adrian English’s “Raped Man’s Stream of Consciousness,” or Farnoosh Moshiri’s poem recounting the terror of giving birth in Iran, or Li-Young Lee’s “Self-Help for Fellow Refugees”—and responses from people who feel struck personally by the blows enacted on others: To speak for, to speak as, and to speak against. We were surprised at the range of issues spoken to by the poets. While torture remained a critical topic, as well as issues at stake in the Iraq War, there were also poems that addressed immigrant rights, prisoners’ rights, the Holocaust, the wars in Cambodia, Vietnam, Serbia, South America, Palestine and Israel. We received poems that spoke of suicide bombing, violence against women, the aftermath of 9/11, and outlawing marriage for gay Americans.
We were also moved at the range of experience among the responders: homeless advocates, civil rights workers, clinical social workers, medics, the mentally ill, veterans, humanitarian aid workers, teachers, conscientious objectors, and, of course, many writers who work and fight daily for social justice in their communities. We are particularly proud of the number of Native American poets included in this anthology, something unusual in anthologies of this sort. It seemed to us impossible to collect a group of poems on human rights issues if we didn’t acknowledge the far reaching and often appalling violations that have taken place in our own country, upon the first citizens of this land who belong to five-hundred-sixty-two federally recognized tribes who function as sovereign nations. It is the acknowledgement of this history, among others, that will allow us to move forward as a country with a clearer conscience, extending our hand to other nations and other peoples who continue to endure neglect and abuse.
—Melissa Kwasny & M.L. Smoker
About the Editors
Melissa Kwasny is the author of three previous books of poetry, The Archival Birds (Bear Star Press, 2000), Thistle (Lost Horse Press, 2006), which also won the Idaho Prize for 2006, and Reading Novalis in Montana (Milkweed Editions, 2009). She is the editor of the anthology Toward the Open Field: Poets on the Art of Poetry 1800-1950 (Wesleyan University Press 2004). Widely published in journals, including Willow Springs, Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, Bellingham Review, Crab Orchard Review, and River Styx, she has recently been the Richard Hugo Visiting Poet at the University of Montana and a Visiting Writer at the University of Wyoming. She lives in Jefferson City, Montana.
M.L. "Mandy" Smoker is Montana poet and a teacher and administrator on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, home of the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes. She is an enrolled member of both tribes. She holds a BA from Pepperdine University and an MFA from the University of Montana. Among her honors were the Richard Hugo Scholarship at Montana and the Arianna and Hannah Yellow Thunder Scholarship at UCLA. She is the author of the poetry book Another Attempt At Rescue.
The Contributors
Contributors include:
Sandra Alcosser
Adrian D. English
Adrian C. Louis
Mohja Kahf
Gabe Furshong
Tiffany Midge
bridget whearty
frank ortega
matthew kaler
lois red elk
lowell jaeger
carolyne wright
eugenia toledo
ilya kaminsky
ellen bass
judith h. montgomery
farnoosh moshiri
joseph bathanti
dr. peter anderson
kim goldberg
sarah conover
eric torgersen
christi kramer
willa schneberg
stacey waite
jeremy halinen
tamiko beyer
roger dunsmore
g.M. grafton
claire kageyama-Ramakrishnan
benjamin l. pérez
elizabeth martínez huergo
prabhakar vasan
marilyn krysl
ann hunkins
erika t. wurth
nicholas samaras
christopher howell
peter marcus
martha collins
mark brazaitis
philip metres
marvin bell
mark pawlak
philip memmer
warren slesinger
rhonda pettit
aimee parkison
natalie peeterse
susan rich
joel long
donna brook
scott hightower
sheryl noethe
victor camillo
c.k. williams
carolyn forché
yusef komunyakaa
Li-young lee
What the contributrs say about the anthology:
"This is a beautiful book. I'm proud to be included."
—Ellen Bass
"I adore this great book. I am so honored to be included. "
—Sheryl Noethe
"What an honor to be included! The book is beautiful. I am humbled to be included among these poets."
—Joel Long
". . . the book—so beautiful, it strikes me as a kind of wonder. The poems are unfailingly powerful, cutting to the heart of the matter, and I can only repeat that I am honoured that a poem of my own should appear in such company. I have the book before me now, and it seems to me that even the cover is memorable: it has, for instance, the human warmth I associate with a Rembrandt, as well as the depth and vulnerability."
—Peter Anderson
"I received . . . I Go to the Ruined Place. I was stunned. It's stunning. I'm so very proud to be in it."
—Joseph Bathanti
"It's beautiful! The cover is stunning, and the poems really span a range of subjects and styles. I feel humbled and grateful to be included in such good company."
—Prabu Vasan
"Thank you for putting it together—it looks great!"
—Martha Collins
"The anthology is beautiful—exquisitely done."
—Peter Marcus
". . . beautiful and beautifully realized anthology: the cover is striking, the title intriguing, and the poems thought-provoking and moving. I'm honored to be in the collection."
—Judith Montgomery
". . . a beautiful and sensitive job of pulling the volume together. It was really a pleasure to move through and between each poem, and see how much we all share in common. Thank you!"
—Liz Huergo
Excerpts
LYNCH
not as in pin, the kind that keeps the wheels
turning, and not the strip of land that marks
the border between two fields. unrelated
to link, as in chain, or by extension whatever
connects one part to another, and therefore
not a measure of chain, which in any
case is less than the span of a hand holding
the reins, the rope, the hoe, or taking
something like justice into itself, as when
a captain turned judge and gave it his name.
that was before it lost its balance and crossed
the border, the massed body of undoers
claiming connection, relation, an intimate
right to the prized parts, to the body undone.
—MARTHA COLLINS
NO EXCHANGE OF LIVESTOCK
It took me fifty years
and countless attempts
to have normal sex.
No booze, no sedatives, no chemical euphoria,
no alcoholic black-out.
No disassociating. No nearly dead drunk.
No “Can’t remember” or if I ever said ”No,” or “Stop.”
No broken marriages. No betrayal, no danger.
No despair, no fixed silence. No blood. No infection.
No lying, no secrets, no night terrors.
No choking or gagging, no warnings, no threats.
No suffocation.
No brothel. No money. No blood feud.
No exchange of livestock, no force.
No genital mutilation. No child brides. No angry God.
No gang rape.
No dawn to dusk curfew. No chattel. No vessel.
No choice. No chance.
And where was God?
They say God saved the few he could.
The rest, however, he kept.
—SHERYL NOETHE
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