America! What's my Name?: The "Other" Poets Unfurl the Flag Edited by Frank X Walker

This book reminds me a little of slam poetry, a style that has become very popular among teenagers, as one of its goals is to challenge the authority of anyone who claims absolute authority over literary value.

In the Introduction to this book, Frank X Walker writes: "America needs poetry more than it needs prisons; ill-conceived government policies, inadequate schools, political spin, or exit polls. Poetry, when used correctly, is the most democratic thing we own. It belongs to the people. It is for the people and it rings truest when written by the people." So he offers this poetry anthology as a whole grain bread offering for the hungry to balance out the elitist caviar mystique of the writings of dead white males promoted by university professors and academics.

These poems range from the angry (the opening poem called "will [my] America know me when i land?" was written by Kathy Wilson before jumping from a 2nd-story window, and it is a fiery bombastic piece that is truly magnificent in its ire) to the passed over and forgotten ("Of Refuge and Language"). One of my favorites was a post 9/11 poem called "The Letting Down of Milk" which beautifully illustrates a mother's horror as she watches the skyscrapers accordion into sidewalks. There is even love interwoven in its pages with a sweet poem called "Bandit Memory".

These poems showcase angry powerful voices that cry out against gender bias, political bias, and cultural bias. As one of the poems called "Reality" says, "What we have killed in this world will rise up against us." And yet there is hope interspersed here as well, as one of the poems titled "Mother Love" says...

I lay my bones down
upon the earth
listening
to the voices
of all my relations
their lyric melodies
filling the empty places
inside of me
I lay
my bones
down
upon the earth
I rise
up
renewed