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What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump
This is an anthology of poems in the Age of Trump—and much more than Trump. These are poems that either embody or express a sense of empathy or outrage, both prior to and following his election, since it is empathy the president lacks and outrage he provokes.
There is an extraordinary diversity of voices here. The ninety-three poets featured include Elizabeth Alexander, Julia Alvarez, Richard Blanco, Carolyn Forché, Aracelis Girmay, Donald Hall, Juan Felipe Herrera, Yusef Komunyakaa, Naomi Shihab Nye, Marge Piercy, Robert Pinsky, Danez Smith, Patricia Smith, Brian Turner, Ocean Vuong, Bruce Weigl, and Eleanor Wilner. They speak of persecuted and scapegoated immigrants. They bear witness to police brutality against African Americans, mass shootings in a school or synagogue, the rage inflicted on women everywhere. They testify to the waitress surviving on leftovers at the restaurant, the battles of a teacher in a shelter for homeless mothers, the emergency-room doctor listening to the heartbeats of his patients. There are voices of labor, in the factory and the fields. There are prophetic voices, imploring us to imagine the world we will leave behind in ruins lest we speak and act.
However, this is not merely a collection of grievances. The poets build bridges. One poet steps up to translate in Arabic at the airport; another walks through the city and sees her immigrant past in the immigrant present; another declaims a musical manifesto after the hurricane that devastated his island; another evokes a demonstration in the street, shouting in an ecstasy of defiance. The poets take back the language, resisting the demagogic corruption of words themselves. They assert our common humanity in the face of dehumanization.
There is an extraordinary diversity of voices here. The ninety-three poets featured include Elizabeth Alexander, Julia Alvarez, Richard Blanco, Carolyn Forché, Aracelis Girmay, Donald Hall, Juan Felipe Herrera, Yusef Komunyakaa, Naomi Shihab Nye, Marge Piercy, Robert Pinsky, Danez Smith, Patricia Smith, Brian Turner, Ocean Vuong, Bruce Weigl, and Eleanor Wilner. They speak of persecuted and scapegoated immigrants. They bear witness to police brutality against African Americans, mass shootings in a school or synagogue, the rage inflicted on women everywhere. They testify to the waitress surviving on leftovers at the restaurant, the battles of a teacher in a shelter for homeless mothers, the emergency-room doctor listening to the heartbeats of his patients. There are voices of labor, in the factory and the fields. There are prophetic voices, imploring us to imagine the world we will leave behind in ruins lest we speak and act.
However, this is not merely a collection of grievances. The poets build bridges. One poet steps up to translate in Arabic at the airport; another walks through the city and sees her immigrant past in the immigrant present; another declaims a musical manifesto after the hurricane that devastated his island; another evokes a demonstration in the street, shouting in an ecstasy of defiance. The poets take back the language, resisting the demagogic corruption of words themselves. They assert our common humanity in the face of dehumanization.
288 pages, Paperback
First published September 15, 2019
About the author
Martín Espada
61 books100 followersSandra Cisneros says: “Martín Espada is the Pablo Neruda of North American authors.” Espada was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1957. He has published thirteen books in all as a poet, essayist, editor and translator. His eighth collection of poems, The Republic of Poetry, was published by Norton in October, 2006. Of this new collection, Samuel Hazo writes: "Espada unites in these poems the fierce allegiances of Latin American poetry to freedom and glory with the democratic tradition of Whitman, and the result is a poetry of fire and passionate intelligence." His last book, Alabanza: New and Selected Poems, 1982-2002 (Norton, 2003), received the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement and was named an American Library Association Notable Book of the Year. An earlier collection, Imagine the Angels of Bread (Norton, 1996), won an American Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Other books of poetry include A Mayan Astronomer in Hell’s Kitchen (Norton, 2000), City of Coughing and Dead Radiators (Norton, 1993), and Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover’s Hands (Curbstone, 1990). He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the Robert Creeley Award, the Antonia Pantoja Award, an Independent Publisher Book Award, a Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, the Charity Randall Citation, the Paterson Poetry Prize, the PEN/Revson Fellowship and two NEA Fellowships. He recently received a 2006 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Harper’s, The Nation, and The Best American Poetry. He has also published a collection of essays, Zapata’s Disciple (South End, 1998); edited two anthologies, Poetry Like Bread: Poets of the Political Imagination from Curbstone Press (Curbstone, 1994) and El Coro: A Chorus of Latino and Latina Poetry (University of Massachusetts, 1997); and released an audiobook of poetry on CD, called Now the Dead will Dance the Mambo (Leapfrog, 2004). Much of his poetry arises from his Puerto Rican heritage and his work experiences, ranging from bouncer to tenant lawyer. Espada is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where he teaches creative writing and the work of Pablo Neruda.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 8, 2020
This is what poetry is for.
November 21, 2019
Disclaimer: I have two poems in this, but loved reading this anthology. Loved the range in style and approach of all contributors, old and new. I'm grateful it's out in the world.
September 18, 2019
Incredibly powerful and lovely poetry from a diverse set of voices, all very timely in our current age of callousness, anger, idiocy and danger. Found some new poets I really liked as well.
January 15, 2024
"...there is no way back from the knowing/something right down to your soul, how there is no remedy for how the brain/is twisted into a loop that will never end..."
- Bruce Weigl
Published in 2019, in the "Before Times," before my brain permanently twisted into a loop.
The body of a refugee child floating face-down in the Mediterranean, his eyes eaten out by fish. We grab by the pussy and pledge allegiance to the flag which, flying high on its erect pole, points us to our next war.
"In a brutal land/within a brutal land/with corrupt leaders/& children killing themselves/we know who is to blame./But we are on a train/a runaway train & we/don't know what to do."
- Adrian C. Louis
I drove past dozens of churches and five gun shops today. American flags of various sizes snapping in a cold wind. A few days ago a woman and two children drowned in the Rio Grande while the Texas National Guard blocked Border Patrol from attempting to render aid.
"a disaster is not a destination --"
- Denice Frohman
I haven't seen a dentist since I was 18 because it's hard to justify the cost. I've got $35,000 in student loan debt and some people probably think I indoctrinate students for a living rather than simply try to ensure basic literacy.
"...yeah we let the old sins/back in--success for the many, fuck-all for/the few--until the few became the many/again and now it's fuck-all for everyone..."
- George Wallace
I've got very little else.
- Bruce Weigl
Published in 2019, in the "Before Times," before my brain permanently twisted into a loop.
The body of a refugee child floating face-down in the Mediterranean, his eyes eaten out by fish. We grab by the pussy and pledge allegiance to the flag which, flying high on its erect pole, points us to our next war.
"In a brutal land/within a brutal land/with corrupt leaders/& children killing themselves/we know who is to blame./But we are on a train/a runaway train & we/don't know what to do."
- Adrian C. Louis
I drove past dozens of churches and five gun shops today. American flags of various sizes snapping in a cold wind. A few days ago a woman and two children drowned in the Rio Grande while the Texas National Guard blocked Border Patrol from attempting to render aid.
"a disaster is not a destination --"
- Denice Frohman
I haven't seen a dentist since I was 18 because it's hard to justify the cost. I've got $35,000 in student loan debt and some people probably think I indoctrinate students for a living rather than simply try to ensure basic literacy.
"...yeah we let the old sins/back in--success for the many, fuck-all for/the few--until the few became the many/again and now it's fuck-all for everyone..."
- George Wallace
I've got very little else.
January 3, 2020
A searing compendium of voices channeling the truths of our times. This collection is a vital, multi-generational and inclusive selection of great voices raised in the business of bearing witness and addressing events in real time.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews