Synopsis
Take a Stand: Art Against Hate, A Raven Chronicles Anthology, edited by Seattle-based writers Anna Balint, Phoebe Bosche, and Thomas Hubbard, contains poems, stories and images from 117 writers and 53 artists, divided into five fluid and intersecting sections: Legacies, We Are Here, Why?, Evidence, and Resistance. We begin with Legacies because the current increased climate of hate in this country didn’t begin with the 2016 election, and to find its roots we must look to U.S. history. These pieces are protest against violence, injustice, cruelty. They are resistance. They are inscription, instruction, witness, warning, remedy, solution, even solace. They document what has been experienced. “I am saying the names / of dead children out loud.” [“Every Child is a Legend,” Jeannine Hall Gailey]. There are as many ways to experience hate as there are events among a diverse and divided people. It is a strong feeling. It divides those who hate and those who are recipients of that hatred. Whether it is a wall that divides races or nations, “Let it [the wall] be built / of guacamole so we can have a bigly block party.” [“The Wall,” Anita Endrezze]. The work represents a wide range of proactively humanitarian and nonviolent stances that poets, artists, and activists have taken in response to the many troubles afflicting us in this era. We can regard Take a Stand: Art Against Hate as a print-form peace march, an ongoing campaign for justice for all of the struggles embodied in these writings and depicted in the photos and artwork included here. This is a deeply democratic anthology—standing alongside nationally prominent voices such as Jericho Brown, Lucille Clifton, Tess Gallagher, Ilya Kaminsky, Dunya Mikhail, Marge Piercy and Danez Smith, are luminaries renowned in the Pacific Northwest region and beyond, such as Kathleen Alcalá, Gary Copeland Lilley, Claudia Castro Luna, Melissa Kwasny, Priscilla Long, Tiffany Midge, Carolyne Wright, and Gail Tremblay. Plus every other voice within this print collective, from every ethnicity and background—all moving forward, holding aloft banners and placards in a grand march across these pages, proclaiming the vision of a more just and peaceful society, sustaining connections with our origins and building a future in which, in the words of poet Ellery Akers, there could be “a swerve in a different direction.” May we find ourselves there, in the words of poet Tanaya Winder, “whole and sacred, alive and breathing and breathing and breathing.”
À propos des auteurs
Anna Bálint is the author of Horse Thief, Curbstone Press, 2004, a collection of short fiction spanning cultures and continents that was a finalist for the Pacific Northwest Book Award. Two earlier books of poetry are Out of the Box and spread them crimson sleeves like wings; her poems, stories and essays have appeared in numerous journals and magazines. She edited Words From the Café, Raven Chronicles Press, 2016, an anthology of writing by people in recovery; and was a contributing editor for Raven Chronicles Journal for many years. In response to the 9/11 attack, invasion of Afghanistan, and increased Islamophobia, she organized Evidence of Compassion: A Reading of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Poetry & Literature, (Elliott Bay Book Company) uniting a culturally diverse group of established and emerging writers as presenters. An alumna of Hedgebrook Writers Retreat and the Jack Straw Writers Program, Anna has also taught creative writing for many years including at WA state prisons, El Centro de la Raza, Writers in the Schools, Antioch University, Richard Hugo House, and Path With Art (all in Seattle). Currently, she teaches adults in recovery from trauma, addiction, mental illness, and homelessness at Seattle's Recovery Café, where she founded Safe Place Writing Circle.
Phoebe Bosché is a cultural activist, and has been managing editor of The Raven Chronicles literary organization/Raven Chronicles Press since 1991. Since 1984, she has organized literary events and readings in the Pacific Northwest. In 1985, she co-founded, along with poet Roberto Valenza, "Alternative To Loud Boats," a literary and musical festival which ran for ten years in various venues in Seattle. She was co-editor of Swale Magazine (with Valenza) and SkyViews, a monthly literary publication of Red Sky Poetry Theater, in the mid-1980s to early 1990s. Her spoken word poems appear in various publications, including the anthology Durable Breath, Contemporary Native American Poetry, Salmon Run Publishing Co., Anchorage, Alaska, and Open Sky. She is a full-time editor and book designer. Her favorite poet is Archy, the cockroach, whose muse is Mehitabel, the alley cat.
Thomas Hubbard, a retired writing instructor and spoken word performer, authored Nail and other hardworking poems, Year of the Dragon Press, 1994; Junkyard Dogz (also available on audio CD); and Injunz, a chapbook. He designed and published Children Remember Their Fathers (an anthology) and books by seven other authors. His book reviews have appeared in Square Lake, Raven Chronicles, New Pages and The Cartier Street Review. Recent publication credits include poems in Yellow Medicine Review, I Was Indian, Foothills Publishing, and Florida Review, and short stories in Red Ink andYellow Medicine Review.
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