Books

for that return passage – A Valentine for the United States of America

(Hollowdeck Press, November 2008)

Does one fall in love with a country in the same ways one falls in love with a person? How do the borders of a country complicate the borders of a person? What happens when a country breaks your heart? In For That Return Passage: A Valentine for the United States of America Lisa Birman has created a unique collection of poems that seek to answer these questions. Using immigration forms, love letters, memoir, translations, and cut-ups of the US Constitution, The Bill of Rights, The Declaration of Independence and even the language on a one dollar bill, these poems measure the decisions of citizenship against the decisions of love.

Civil Disobediences – Poetics and Politics in Action

co-edited with Anne Waldman

(Coffee House Press, 2004)

As cultural absurdities, apathy-inspiring ambient noise, and political and ecological disasters threaten the 21st-century world, art’s role in engaging society and coalescing dissent becomes more apparent and more urgent. Civil Disobediences offers a manual for understanding poetry’s history and enacting its ultimate power to dismantle and recreate political and cultural realities.

Composed of essays, lectures, and teaching materials by leading contemporary poets and scholars, this anthology explores the craft of poetry as well as the history of poetic/political action in the US and abroad, the development of ancient and modern poetic forms, the legacy of world-renowned poets, and the intersections between poetry and spirituality. It also provides concrete advice about bringing poetry into your local community and ensuring that “poetry is news that stays news.”

Contributors: Helen Adam, Ammiel Alcalay, Amiri Baraka, Ted Berrigan, Lisa Birman, Robin Blaser, Reed Bye, Jack Collom, Robert Creeley, Beverly Dahlen, Samuel R. Delany, Steve Dickison, Robert Duncan, Michael du Plessis, kari edwards, Marlowe Fawcett, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Alan Gilbert, Allen Ginsberg, James Grauerholz, Barbara Guest, Bobbie Louise Hawkins, Anselm Hollo, Laird Hunt, Robert Hunter, Pierre Joris, Joanne Kyger, Laura Mullen, Eileen Myles, Kai Nieminen, Alice Notley, Akilah Oliver, Douglas Oliver, Michael Ondaatje, James Oughton, Max Regan, Sonia Sanchez, Edward Sanders, Eleni Sikelianos, Gary Snyder, Cole Swensen, Arthur Sze, Steven Taylor, Roberto Tejada, Lorenzo Thomas, Anne Waldman, Peter Warshall, Peter Lamborn Wilson