What Saves Us

"We now live in the "Age of Trump," whether we wish to admit it or not. The backlash represented by 45 is not only political, but cultural and linguistic as well. Because Trump and his ilk divorce language from meaning, we now live in an age of hyper-euphemism, where "alt-right" refers to what everyone, even apologists, once called "white supremacy." However, as What Saves Us editor Martin Espada observes, poets have a particular gift for reconciling language and meaning, for calling things and people by their right names, for restoring the blood to words. Furthermore, poets are well qualified to document this historical moment--and the more astonishing the moment, the more surreal or ominous, the more we need poets to capture that moment in a few brushstrokes of language. The poems collected in this volume, nevertheless, are not limited to works aimed at Trump, or poems written in the wake of his election. They're not narrowly "political," nor are they all well-written rants. Instead, these poems embody or express a sense of empathy or outrage in the Age of Trump, both prior to and following his election, since it is empathy the president lacks and outrage he provokes as a result. In the tradition of an earlier Curbstone Press volume edited by Espada, Poetry Like Bread: Poets of the Political Imagination (2000), these poems speak from the heart of the communities most gravely endangered in our times, or on behalf of these communities. These poems assert our common humanity in the face of dehumanization"--Provided by publisher.