Synopses & Reviews
This stunning anthology features literary artists in America's social justice arena from 1980 on. Selected fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction challenge the myth of a classless democracy, redefine the family, deconstruct American notions of race and patriotism, and track the growth of environmental awareness within the American psyche. The collection draws connections among groups traditionally siloed by race, gender, class, or sexuality.
Authors include Jonis Agee, Elizabeth Alexander, Sherman J. Alexie, Dorothy Allison, Marvin Bell, Barrie Jean Borich, Nickole Brown, Philip Bryant, James Cihlar, Alison Deming, Anthony Doerr, Mark Doty, Heid Erdrich, Louise Erdrich, B.H. Fairchild, Nick Flynn, Kenny Fries, Eric Gansworth, Ray Gonzalez, J.C. Hallman, Patricia Hampl, Greg Hewett, Scott Hightower, Tony Hoagland, Linda Hogan, Javier O. Huerta, Deborah Keenan, Yusef Komunyakaa, Ed Bok Lee, Bobbie Ann Mason, Bill McKibben, Donald Morrill, David Mura, Kristin Naca, Mark Nowak, D.A. Powell, Hilda Raz, Adrienne Rich, Scott Russell Sanders, Patricia Smith, Brian Turner, Emily C. Watson, Diane Wilson.
Review
Praise for American TensionsThe best anthologies, like the one youve got in your hands right now, are full of wise, deeply felt writing that one reads with an intimation of eternity, as if one were looking up into the stars . . . Here is a generous portion of the best contemporary writing about contemporary issues, about our issues, compiled and present to us with generosity and enthusiasm . . . This book is a gift made to last.”
Ted Kooser, United States Poet Laureate 2004-2006 [from the Foreword]
This is a powerful collection of down-to-earth yet vivid snapshots of American
life in places and situations that the myth of the American dream makes us want
to ignore. By turn, it is startling, gritty, and haunting. The poems, short stories and excepts of novels are unsettlingideal for provoking conversation about the issues of injustice facing our society at this moment in history.”
Dr. Cris Toffolo, Chair, Justice Studies, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago
When my friend, the writer and activist Alice Lovelace, shares her wisdom with
people contemplating social change work she begins with an admonition: Dont
even begin to consider this journey unless you are prepared to be changed yourself. This volume should carry the same warning.”
William Cleveland, author, Art and Upheaval: Artists on the Worlds Frontlines and Between Grace and Fear: The Role of the Arts in a Time of Change
Reviews of American Tensions
"As a playlist captures the complex and sometimes competing forces within a relationship, revealing much about the essential interplay between composer and audience, so too does American Tensions provide a timely snapshot of our nations post-identity literary landscape and the real uses and purposes we make out of writing and reading."
Sam Woodworth, Fogged Clarity: An Arts Review
"The melting pot isn't an easy blend, as the boiling nature within it can prove quite nasty. "American Tensions: Literature of Identity and the Search for Social Justice" is a collection of fiction, poetry, essays, and much more from various authors who speak on the continued push forward as America tries to be that harmonious union of peoples up front, and the much darker conflict that lands underneath it all. Through literature and nonfiction, these writers provide many opinions and views to grant readers the many conflicting perspectives in our nation today. For those who want to gain a greater understanding in our nation's push for equality, "American Tensions" is a thoughtful and very highly recommended read."
Midwest Book Review
"The writers featured in American Tensions are both established and emerging, some with many publications, some with only a few, but what binds them together is that they are embodiments of the legacy of that melting pot sales pitch. Their stories reflect that American identity may owe a great deal to the constant reminder that it is not an assimilated, uniform everyperson, but a 'messy, fractious web of cultures, myths, relationships, and races.'"
-LJ Moore, SF Books Examiner
Review
Expert Reviews of American Tensions"As a playlist captures the complex and sometimes competing forces within a relationship, revealing much about the essential interplay between composer and audience, so too does American Tensions provide a timely snapshot of our nations post-identity literary landscape and the real uses and purposes we make out of writing and reading."
Sam Woodworth, Fogged Clarity: An Arts Review
"The melting pot isn't an easy blend, as the boiling nature within it can prove quite nasty. "American Tensions: Literature of Identity and the Search for Social Justice" is a collection of fiction, poetry, essays, and much more from various authors who speak on the continued push forward as America tries to be that harmonious union of peoples up front, and the much darker conflict that lands underneath it all. Through literature and nonfiction, these writers provide many opinions and views to grant readers the many conflicting perspectives in our nation today. For those who want to gain a greater understanding in our nation's push for equality, "American Tensions" is a thoughtful and very highly recommended read."
Midwest Book Review
"The writers featured in American Tensions are both established and emerging, some with many publications, some with only a few, but what binds them together is that they are embodiments of the legacy of that melting pot sales pitch. Their stories reflect that American identity may owe a great deal to the constant reminder that it is not an assimilated, uniform everyperson, but a 'messy, fractious web of cultures, myths, relationships, and races.'"
LJ Moore, SF Books Examiner
Synopsis
This stunning anthology features literary artists in America's social justice arena from 1980 on. Selected fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction challenge the myth of a classless democracy, redefine the family, deconstruct American notions of race and patriotism, and track the growth of environmental awareness within the American psyche. The collection draws connections among groups traditionally siloed by race, gender, class, or sexuality.
Authors include Edward Abbey, Dorothy Allison, Marvin Bell, Robert Bly, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Louise Erdrich, Robert Hass, Barbara Kingsolver, Yusef Komunyakaa, Ted Kooser, David Mura, Carl Phillips, Adrienne Rich, Gary Snyder, Susan Sontag, Juliana Spahr, and Kurt Vonnegut.
Synopsis
This anthology of contemporary American poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction, explores issues of identity, oppression, injustice, and social change. Living American writers produced each piece between 1980 and the present; works were selected based on literary merit and the manner in which they address one or more pressing social issues.
William Reichard has assembled some of the most respected literary artists of our time, asking whose voices are ascendant, whose silenced, and why. The work as a whole reveals shifting perspectives and the changing role of writing in the social justice arena over the last few decades.
Synopsis
An anthology of contemporary American short fiction, poetry, and essays that explores issues of oppression, injustice, identity, and social change.
Synopsis
Selected contemporary fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction confront the
myth of a classless democracy, redefine the family, deconstruct American
notions of race and patriotism, and uncover conflicting tugs of nature, place,
and culture in the American psyche.
This anthology brings fresh writers into the company of literary heavyweights
Sherman Alexie, Yusef Komunyakaa, Adrienne Rich, Marvin Bell, and Dorothy
Allison. Challenging the traditional New Criticism approach to reading, the
collection works to re-situate its writers in their social and historical contexts. In so doing, editor William Reichard shows how these authors participate in and shape history.
About the Author
William Reichard is the author of four collections of poetry:
Sin Eater (Mid-List Press, 2010);
This Brightness (Mid-List Press, 2007);
How To (Mid-List Press, 2004), a finalist for the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets; and
An Alchemy in the Bones (New Rivers Press, 1999), which won a MN Voices Prize. Poems from
This Brightness and
How To have been featured on NPR’s Writers Almanac.” Reichard has published one chapbook,
To Be Quietly Spoken (Frith Press, 2001) and is the editor of
The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s: A Gay Life in the 1940s (Univ. of MN Press, 2001).
Reichard holds an MA in Creative Writing, and a Ph.D. in American Literature, both from the University of Minnesota. He has taught at the University of Minnesota, The University of Saint Thomas, and Saint Catherine University. Reichard is a Program Director for the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs, where he teaches two college-level off-campus study programs: Writing for Social Change, which examines the role of literature and the writer in offering social critique and working for social justice; and City Arts, which examines the role of art, artists, and activists in working for social justice and social change.
Table of Contents
Preface by former US Poet Laureate Ted KooserIntroduction by William Reichard
Section One: The Lives We’re Given, The Lives We Make
Louise Erdrich
Future Home of the Living God”
B. H. Fairchild
Speaking of Names”
The Machinist, Teaching His Daughter to Play the Piano”
Work”
Keats”
Bobbie Ann Mason
Shiloh”
Dorothy Allison
Bastard Out of Carolina (an excerpt)
Nickole Brown
The Root Woman”
The Smell of Snake”
Trestle”
In Winter”
Straddling Fences”
Tony Hoagland
At the Galleria”
Dialectical Materialism”
Patricia Hampl
The Florist’s Daughter (an excerpt)
Nick Flynn
Other Meaning”
Seven Fragments (found inside my father)”
Father Outside”
Jonis Agee
Good to Go”
Patricia Smith
Man On The TV Say”
Only Everything I Own”
Inconvenient”
What To Tweak”
Golden Rule Days”
Mark Nowak
$00/Line/Steel/Train” (excerpts)
James Cihlar
Lessons”
Lincoln Avenue”
Resolution”
Undoing”
J. C. Hallman
Manikin”
Hilda Raz
Avoidance”
Said to Sarah, Ten”
Trans”
Aaron at Work/Rain”
Greg Hewett
Hymns to Nanan”
Section Two: That Which Holds Us Together, That Which Pulls Us Apart
Adrienne Rich
An Atlas of the Difficult World” (excerpts)
Kristin Naca
Speaking English Is Like”
Uses for Spanish in Pittsburgh”
Grocery Shopping with My Girlfriend Who Is Not Asian”
Speaking Spanish Is Like”
Sherman Alexie
Indian Education”
Kenny Fries
The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin’s Theory (excerpts)
Elizabeth Alexander
Fugue”
Overture: Watermelon City”
Brian Turner
Observation Post #71”
Here, Bullet”
AB Negative”
Night in Blue”
Ray Gonzalez
Praise the Tortilla, Praise Menudo, Praise Chorizo”
The Magnets”
These Days”
Marvin Bell
I Didn’t Sleep”
Bagram, Afghanistan, 2002”
Messy”
Poem Post-9/11/01”
David Mura
First Generation Angels”
The Young Asian Women”
Father Blues for Jon Jang”
Minneapolis Public”
Scott Russell Sanders
Under the Influence”
Heid Erdrich
Guidelines for the Treatment of Sacred Objects”
The Theft Outright”
Butter Maiden and Maize Girl Survive Death Leap”
The Lone Reader and Tonchee Fistfight in Pages”
Mark Doty
Charlie Howard’s Descent”
Tiara”
Homo Will Not Inherit”
Beginners”
Art Lessons”
Javier O. Huerta
Toward a Portrait of the Undocumented”
Blasphemous Elegy for May 14, 2003”
Eric Gansworth
The Rain, the Rez, and Other Things”
Yusef Komunyakaa
Autobiography of My Alter Ego” (excerpts)
Philip Bryant
1959, Loomis Avenue”
Akhenaten”
The Glue That Held Everything Together”
Diane Wilson
Spirit Car: Journey to a Dakota Past (excerpt)
Scott Hightower
Conjuring War”
Falling Man”
But at the Church”
Ed Bok Lee
Polygutteral”
Burnt Offering: Mid-November”
Frozen in the Sky”
The Secret to Life in America”
Section Three: The Edge of the World The Contemporary Environment
Alison Hawthorne Deming
Culture, Biology, and Emergence”
Bill McKibben
Designer Genes”
Deborah Keenan
So Much Like A Beach After All”
It Is Fair To Be Crossing”
Not Getting Tired of the Earth”
Between Now and Then”
Donald Morrill
Lone Tree, 1986”
D. A. Powell
continental divide”
cancer inside the little sea”
Anthony Doerr
Cloudy Is the Stuff of Stones”
Linda Hogan
Humble”
Rapture”
The Radiant”
The Night Constant”
Barrie Jean Borich
Waterfront Property”
Emily Watson
Alice & Emily, Diana & Dunes”