American Tensions – Literature of Identity and the Search for Social Justice

Autor William Reichard, Ted Kooser, Sherman Alexie, Elizabeth Alexander, Linda Hogan

en Limba Engleză Paperback – 25 apr 2011

This stunning anthology features literary artists in America's social justice arena from 1980 on. Selected fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction challenge the myth of a classless democracy, redefine the family, deconstruct American notions of race and patriotism, and track the growth of environmental awareness within the American psyche. The collection draws connections among groups traditionally siloed by race, gender, class, or sexuality.
Authors include Jonis Agee, Elizabeth Alexander, Sherman J. Alexie, Dorothy Allison, Marvin Bell, Barrie Jean Borich, Nickole Brown, Philip Bryant, James Cihlar, Alison Deming, Anthony Doerr, Mark Doty, Heid Erdrich, Louise Erdrich, B.H. Fairchild, Nick Flynn, Kenny Fries, Eric Gansworth, Ray Gonzalez, J.C. Hallman, Patricia Hampl, Greg Hewett, Scott Hightower, Tony Hoagland, Linda Hogan, Javier O. Huerta, Deborah Keenan, Yusef Komunyakaa, Ed Bok Lee, Bobbie Ann Mason, Bill McKibben, Donald Morrill, David Mura, Kristin Naca, Mark Nowak, D.A. Powell, Hilda Raz, Adrienne Rich, Scott Russell Sanders, Patricia Smith, Brian Turner, Emily C. Watson, Diane Wilson.

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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9780981559384
ISBN-10: 0981559387
Pagini: 336
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 15 mm
Greutate: 0.54 kg
Ediția:New.
Editura: MI – New York University

Recenzii

Expert Reviews of American Tensions

"As a playlist captures the complex and sometimes competing forces within a relationship, revealing much about the essential interplay between composer and audience, so too does American Tensions provide a timely snapshot of our nation’s post-identity literary landscape and the real uses and purposes we make out of writing and reading."
—Sam Woodworth, Fogged Clarity: An Arts Review

"The melting pot isn't an easy blend, as the boiling nature within it can prove quite nasty. "American Tensions: Literature of Identity and the Search for Social Justice" is a collection of fiction, poetry, essays, and much more from various authors who speak on the continued push forward as America tries to be that harmonious union of peoples up front, and the much darker conflict that lands underneath it all. Through literature and nonfiction, these writers provide many opinions and views to grant readers the many conflicting perspectives in our nation today. For those who want to gain a greater understanding in our nation's push for equality, "American Tensions" is a thoughtful and very highly recommended read."
—Midwest Book Review

"The writers featured in American Tensions are both established and emerging, some with many publications, some with only a few, but what binds them together is that they are embodiments of the legacy of that melting pot sales pitch. Their stories reflect that American identity may owe a great deal to the constant reminder that it is not an assimilated, uniform everyperson, but a 'messy, fractious web of cultures, myths, relationships, and races.'"
—LJ Moore, SF Books Examiner

Extras

[Section intro]

Section Two: That Which Holds Us Together, That Which Pulls Us Apart

We each have our own sense of what it means to be American. This sense is derived from a vast and shifting catalog of influences, including cultural and social messaging, the constant pressure of normative behavior, everything we see, hear, and read, prejudices and preferences, and our individual experiences. Everywhere we turn, we’re bombarded by sometimes subtle and oftentimes bombastic messages about what it means to be an American, how to act like an American, how to defend America, and who and who isn’t a “real” American. We all have to contend with constantly competing ideas about what defines the great experiment that is the United States of America. This social and cultural noise can make it difficult to critically reflect on our own experiences, our sense of self, and what shapes our identity. Most of us have, to some extent, multiple identities, and we’re often pulled in several directions at once when someone asks us who we are, what we are, where we’re from. The stories, poems, and prose in this section explore the lives of individuals who find themselves at intersections, places where one sense of self clashes with another, where one individual or group tries to gain control over another. The work here simultaneously defines what it means to be American and defies any easy definition of that label. The United States is a living organism, never at rest, and never the same thing twice. It exists because of the dynamic play between unity and tension. This same sense of tensegrity is what holds up the work in this section, with each piece defining, in moments of clarity, an individual’s sense of an American self, filled with conflict, confidence, and a myriad of unanswered questions.

[Contribution to Section Two]

The Secret to Life in America

by Ed Bok Lee

My brother sits me down and tells me
the secret to life in America.
I’m twelve years old when this happens.
He grabs my shoulders and says:
No one likes an immigrant.
It reminds them of when they fell down
and no one was around to help them.
When they couldn’t talk.
As children when they got lost in public.
Cold and wet, everyone hates an immigrant.

So don’t trust nobody.
The whites, they’ll teach you
to hate yourself for being silent.
They’ll punish you for fighting back.
They’ll love the taste of your food and culture, and sister...
and yet spit you out.

The Blacks, at first you’d think they understand loss.
But to them you’re just another cracker with a bad case of jaundice.
Don’t expect shit from them,
they can’t afford to be generous.
Latins laugh at you behind your back.
Do you know this? I’m trying to tell you
how it is in the city,
he says.

I ask my brother if I can go outside now.

No!, he screams. Our father is dead
and now I have to teach you
how to survive
in America.

Fags are everywhere.
And they want you. ‘Cause
to them you’re exotic and cute
and will do all the dirty work.
The Chinese look down on you
for using their alphabet. The Japanese have raped
your women through the centuries
and will do it again. In fact, never
do business with other Asians,
‘cause they’re the greediest people alive.
Next to Jews.

Now I’m crying, because my brother
has pulled off his work shirt.

Open your eyes!
This is where that black boy pulled the trigger
over twenty dollars and a candy bar! Here
is where the whites punctured my kidney in a parking lot outside of Denny’s
And the Mexicans just kept drinking their beers.
This is the bruise on my soul
where every American girl ever looked at me
like I was still the enemy.
This is where agent orange first set in.
This is where the DMZ line is still drawn!
Taste the barbed wire on my tongue!
See where that fat white teacher called me a freak
for getting a B in math! Feel
my broken immigrant’s throat
that couldn’t tell him to Fuck Off!!!
These are my yellow hands!
This is my cock!
These are my eyes wide open!
This is my heart filled with cigarette smoke!
This my aching back
which brought you here
and buried our father!
This is the cheek mother slapped
for the way that I called her
ignorant.

This is the GQ subscription sister gave me for Christmas.

Here is my blood, which tastes just like tears.
These are my dreams for the future
dead and shriveled in the corner.
This is my broom. This the face
I couldn’t save from myself.
Are you listening to any of this?

Yes, I tell him. I’m listening.

You’re lucky, he says. You’ll go to college
when you grow up.

I don’t know, I tell him.

Work your ass off and move away from this shit hole
out to the suburbs. Maybe marry
a white girl.

I don’t know, I tell him.

Go off and write.... Poetry.

I won’t, I say.

Yes you will. And when you do,
do me this one favor.

What, I ask.

Lie.
And make our father and me

the heroes

you always needed us to be.

Textul de pe ultima copertă

Selected contemporary fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction confront the myth of a classless democracy, redefine the family, deconstruct American notions of race and patriotism, and uncover conflicting tugs of nature, place, and culture in the American psyche.

This anthology brings fresh writers into the company of literary heavyweights Sherman Alexie, Yusef Komunyakaa, Adrienne Rich, Marvin Bell, and Dorothy Allison. Challenging the traditional New Criticism approach to reading, the collection works to re-situate its writers in their social and historical contexts. In so doing, editor William Reichard shows how these authors participate in and shape history.

Praise for American Tensions

"The best anthologies, like the one you've got in your hands right now, are full of wise, deeply felt writing that one reads with an intimation of eternity, as if one were looking up into the stars... Here in your hand is a generous portion of the best contemporary writing about contemporary issues, about our issues, compiled and present to us with generosity and enthusiasm... This book is a gift made to last."
—Ted Kooser, United States Poet Laureate 2004-2006 [from the Foreword]

"This is a powerful collection of down-to-earth yet vivid snapshots of American life in places and situations that the myth of the American dream makes us want to ignore. By turn, it is startling, gritty, and haunting. The poems, short stories and excerpts of novels are unsettling—ideal for provoking conversation about the issues of injustice facing our society at this moment in history."
—Dr. Cris Toffolo, Chair, Justice Studies, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago

"When my friend, the writer and activist Alice Lovelace, shares her wisdom with people contemplating social change work she begins with an admonition: 'Don't even begin to consider this journey unless you are prepared to be changed yourself.' This volume should carry the same warning."
—William Cleveland, author, Art and Upheaval: Artists on the World's Frontlines and Between Grace and Fear: The Role of Arts in a Time of Change

Notă biografică

Agee, Jonis: - Jonis Agee was born in Omaha, Nebraska and grew up in Nebraska and Missouri, places where many of her stories and novels are set. She was educated at the University of Iowa (BA) and the State University of New York at Binghamton (MA, PhD). She is Adele Hall Professor of English at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. She is the author of thirteen books, including the novels Sweet Eyes, Strange Angels, and her most recent, The River Wife, and the short fiction collection, A .38 Special and a Broken Heart, Taking the Wall, and Acts of Love on Indigo Road. Agee's awards include the Gold Award from ForeWord magazine for Acts of Love on Indigo Road, 2004; the NEA grant in fiction; a Loft-McKnight Award of Distinction; the Nebraska Book Award for Weight of Dreams, 2000. Three of her books Strange Angels, Bend This Heart, and Sweet Eyes were named Notable Books of the Year by The New York Times.

Descriere

An anthology of contemporary American short fiction, poetry, and essays that explores issues of oppression, injustice, identity, and social change.

Papetărie, jocuri, reviste