POETRY IS BREAD

A most philosophical collection of cool rhythms, metaphysical investigations and elastic imaginations. They conjure memories and interplanetary shouts, calls for revolt, rewinding identity and color, embracing the earth and its animals. Most of all, they are mind-heaters ready to “turn it all upside down.” Prepare to read notes on separation, erasure, formlessness, loneliness and the now-duel between “existence and absence. “These poems run deep. These poets meet reality today head-on: they sing for “losing gods” and are hungry for bread, “wanting to live.” I truly appreciate these writings and poets. Superb, daring warriors, Sunriders of the Dragon of 2024 and beyond. A ground breaker!

—Juan Felipe Herrera, Poet Laureate of the USA, Emeritus, Recipient of the Ruth Lilly Prize and the Robert Frost Medal

As the world went into lockdown, many of us turned to literature from the bubonic plague–a kind of literary homeopathy by which “like cures like” –for reassurance that the human spirit can survive such crises. While plagues come and go, our most recent planet-wide sickness has left us with a new normal along with rising temperatures and seas, and extinctions of all kinds. Poetry is Bread offers the healing art for our age. With an all-embracing range of expression, the poems gathered here will be treating our ailing spirits for generations to come.

—Gregory Pardlo, author of Digest, winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

Reading Poetry is Bread feels like a journey through a secret tunnel that leads to some treasury of the collective mind. These poems make exquisitely known the richness of human thought and feeling. Here are songs that mobilize against all that would extinguish life and reaffirms all that is sensitive, vulnerable, and aware. As poet and literary citizen, Tina Cane magically gifts us a fine gathering of voices which we will return during times of tumult and tranquility.

—Major Jackson, American poet and professor at Vanderbilt University

Poetry Is Bread:  The Anthology is an extraordinary gathering of today’s most compelling voices.  But more importantly, Cane’s gorgeously crafted and expertly curated book shows the full range of what poetry can do to create a better world, to instill hope, to reward the pursuit of justice in all of its many forms. Here, an incredible range of styles and aesthetics are brought to bear on what is essentially the same question:  in the wake of environmental crisis, recession, and pandemic, what can poetry do to make us whole again?  This is a rewarding and truly remarkable anthology.

—Kristina Marie Darling, author of Silent Refusal & Daylight Has Already Come