Review by Booklist Review
Because women are so often the innocent victims of violence; because women mourn their men who are killed in wars and mayhem; and because women are most often the ones who survive to care for others, their perspective on bloodshed is different than that of men, as is their vision of peace. This recognition inspired the editors of this clarion anthology to seek out poems by women who address the perverse, tragic habits of war and domestic violence with open eyes and valiant hearts. Their poems are astonishing in their poise, restraint, and dignity as the roil of emotions and politics is channeled into cauterizing irony and images of startling, hard-edged beauty. Global in its gifted contributors (from Jerusalem to Rwanda to Hiroshima) and universal in its visions, this exceptional anthology of probity and hope is both timeless and timely. Every poem--by Wistawa Szynborska, Naomi Shihab Nye, Lyn Lifshin, Fadwa Tuqan, Molly Peacock, and the rest--is a beam of light, an act of resistance and reform. Donna Seaman.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Internationally acclaimed poets like Wislawa Szymborska, Lucille Clifton, Natalya Gorbanevskaya and Fadwa Tuqan protest violence and war in A Chorus for Peace: A Global Anthology of Poetry by Women. Edited by Brigham Young University English professor Marilyn Arnold, BYU psychology professor Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill and Western Michigan University creative writing teacher Kristen Tracy, the book is divided into sections like "Women Surviving War," "Domestic Battlefields" and "Reaching and Rebuilding." "I was to be shot at dawn," writes Irina Ratushinskaya in "I Had a Strange Dream," "And then one of my classmates appeared,/ My classmate said: `Good evening/ How unlucky you've been. I'm very sorry./ I mean, being shot it's so inhumane./ I've always believed in soft measures.' "(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
