What do we talk about when we talk about money? As the forty-four poets
in this brilliant new anthology show, the answer is everything. From the
impact of global economic crises to local tag sales, from the subversive
effects of dark money on politics to the freedom granted by a summer
job, from sweatshops where our clothes are produced to the malls where
they are sold, this volume gets to the heart of Americans' relationships
to capital as only poetry can.
Editors Benjamin S. Grossberg and Clare Rossini selected poems to
reflect broad themes of labor, history and economic forces, social
equity, and the environment. In addition, they asked each poet to
provide a brief prose comment to introduce their work. Some give broad
statements on the nature of wealth in America today; others are
intimate, offering insight into how life experiences inform their
writing; still others reflect on the art of poetry itself and its unique
power to speak to economic pressures of the moment.
Contributors include Mary Jo Bang, Xochiquetzal Candelaria, Alan
Chazaro, Mark Doty, Denise Duhamel, Tony Hoagland, Yusef Komunyakaa,
Dorianne Laux, Kimiko Hahn, Sharon Olds, George Perreault, Robert
Pinsky, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Afaa Michael Weaver, David Wojahn, and
others.
