Like Thunder: Poets Respond to Violence in America [Paperback]

Virgil Suarez (Editor), Ryan G. Van Cleave (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2002

More than 140 poems by 120 of America's best poets that focus on the effects of violence in contemporary America.

From Waco to Columbine, from Oklahoma City to New York City, from domestic abuse and drive-by shootings to religious fanaticism and acts of terrorism, the poems in Like Thunder are for those who have perished and those who have survived. More than 140 poems by 120 poets focus, in the editors' words, on “the violence in the news, the violence in our schools, the violence in our homes, as well as the violence in our own minds.”

The poets gathered here articulate terror and suffering but also present images of hope and redemption; they write of individual menaces and individual victims and the melding of the two that potentially exists in everyone. By transforming horrifying details into larger truths, they create a poetry of witness, of survival, and of remembrance.

CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE
Kim Addonizio
Sherman Alexie
Martha Collins
Stuart Dybek
Martín Espada
Bob Hicok
Rachel Loden
Walt McDonald
Campbell McGrath
Stanley Plumly
Heather Sellers
Judith Vollmer
and many more

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Columbine and Oklahoma City are among the subjects in Like Thunder: Poets Respond to Violence in America, but so are smaller-scale encounters with violence. In "Lithium," Marcus Carfagna's narrator describes visiting his bank-robbing brother in jail: "I ask him how he could do something that stupid He confesses through the food slot that he wanted some fast cash to fix the crushed white door of his Dodge Dart so his date wouldn't have to squeeze behind the wheel and scootch herself across the seat." Editors Virgil Suarez and Ryan G. Van Cleave, who also co-edited American Diaspora, have gathered works by 120 writers including Maxine Chernoff, Sherman Alexie and Campbell McGrath.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Conceived and edited before September 11, these poems serve as reminders that terrorists are not our only threat. There are responses to high-profile murderers (Simpson, Koresh, et al.), but the collection's strength rests in a subtle joining of internal and external, depicting violence at a level too often ignored. Thus, Peter Johnson's prose poem begins "There's a tattoo of a tiny gun on my hand symbolic of the tiny wars I wage inside myself," and Denise Duhamel describes a child raped near where her sister and nieces live. Wisely, the editors elected not to group the pieces thematically, instead presenting them in alphabetical order. Similarly, they keep their introduction short and simple, letting the ethnically diverse poets speak for themselves. A few writers trivialize the experience, and many employ rhetoric rather than image, but there are also poems whose sharp, concise portraits will not soon be forgotten. These are not Sixties pacifists protesting war but for the most part a generation of writers who have grown up with graphic violence posing as entertainment. Many have yet to publish collections, so their names will be unfamiliar, but that shouldn't dissuade libraries from purchasing this excellent anthology. Rochelle Ratner, formerly with "Soho Weekly News," New York
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: University Of Iowa Press; 1st edition (January 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0877457921
• ISBN-13: 978-0877457923
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,933,790 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ryan G. Van Cleave, Ph.D., is an international speaker on video game addiction; he also gives presentations and workshops on social networking, cyberbullying, and parenting tech-savvy kids. He teaches writing at The Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, FL.

The author (or co-author) of eighteen books, his writing has appeared in such publications as The Boston Review, The Christian Science Monitor, Clean Eating, Harvard Review, The Iowa Review, The Missouri Review, National Geographic Adventures, The New York Times Book Review, People, Ploughshares, The Progressive, Psychology Today, and Writers' Digest.

To contact the author: ryangvancleave.com