When we made our call for submissions for an anthology of poems in defense of human rights, the allegations of torture were foremost in our minds. We knew people were outraged, saddened, profoundly moved and ashamed. But we also wanted to reach people who had suffered violations of their own rights from circumstances across the globe, or whose families had, or for whom preventing or healing these violations had become a life’s work. We drafted our call loosely: we are increasingly witness to torture, terrorisms and other violations of human rights at unprecedented degrees. What do our instincts tell us and what is our response to these violations? What is our vision of a future wherein human rights are not only respected but expanded?

- from the Introduction by Melissa Kwasny and M.L. Smoker, co-editors

While the poems cover an intense range of experience — the thoughts of a man raped in prison (Adrian English’s “Raped Man’s Stream of Consciousness”), the aftermath of 9/11 (Susan Rich’s “Mohamud at the Mosque”), the arrest of an illegal immigrant (Aimee Parkison’s “Undocumented”), and even an exploration of the word lynch (Martha Collins’s “Lynch”) — each and every single poem speaks of the human connection we all share.

- Alicia Gregory, Foreign Policy in Focus