Words Chosen for the Wall

Book excerpt: Words Chosen for the Wall is poetry testifying to the deepest elements in the American dream casting a light on cultural diversity, experiences of exclusion and belonging, and the walls of dividing hostility in society. It explores new paths that leap for unity, empathy, and hope. In this collection, poems give voice to experiences in a divided world and reach for beauty, unity, and emotional clarity. Like graffiti on walls, the poems call out various and different kinds of abuses and visions of life to quote Eliot "at the still point of the turning world." Each poem creates a space for the reader to bring their own baggage to a setting that questions idealized notions of community by offering lyrical words that speak to realities that are often ignored, or worse, forgotten. In this work, poems guide readers to the terrain of imagination that is a fine tool for repairing what is broken in society and that ceaselessly pleads for a solidarity of difference. These poems motivate dreams of a different existence and decolonize the imagination from the limitations of a single culture and understanding of life together.