Making Way: Poems of Conscience
Making Way: Poems of Conscience invites the reader to deepen their relationship with Earth, Self, Spirit, and the social, economic, cultural, and ecological upheavals of our time. Each poem responds to an epigraph by an Indigenous, African, African American, Queer, or other creative voice bringing authors, eco-philosophers, activists, and cultural commentators into the poetic text as living presence. Whether in celebration or mourning, critique or praise, love or sorrow, these poems invite a depth response to the polycrisis of the present. The book can be read as a series of discrete lyrical poetic statements or as one long poem. Its unique structure is based on the Spiral Dance or Serpent Dance, an ancient line dance that embodies the non-linearity of time, memory, consciousness, and lived experience. Through the choreographed pattern of step, step, step back, the movement of the dance as represented in these pages suggests the pace of change cannot only be forward momentum. There is both forward movement and the critical step back, inviting pause, reflection, redirection, remembering. The invitation of this book is to share these poems in community, read them aloud, respond and raise your own voice to speak openly of humanity's past experience, life in the present, and hope for the future. The poems not only bear witness but also express what it is to be alive amidst the polycrisis. Dominican poet Marianela Medrano says of these poems, "This light we are is cast by twenty-one quotes from consciously aware minds, a call-and-response with creative, brave voices. Afterward we realize we have entered a heartfelt, one-breath poem that recognizes, repairs, regenerates, and transforms."
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