Report an issue
Tell us what's wrong and we'll take a look.
Thanks – we got it. We'll review and follow up if needed.
We live in a moment of authoritarian takeovers happening around the world. In such times, we turn to the creative arts. We turn to poets.
Margaret Randall has lived and written in the United States, Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua during years of great social change. Her own home country ordered her deported for her writings; she won her case, and her citizenship was restored.
Here, Randall explores how poets in other times and other places have responded to forces that would diminish or destroy them. She draws on Bertolt Brecht, Carolyn Forché, Nâzım Hikmet, Roque Dalton, Gioconda Belli, Juan Gelman, Raul Zurita, and Zeina Azzam to understand, as she says, how "a poem works by virtue of its ability to lift us out of complacency, to let us see and feel through the smoke screen intentionally erected to keep us in line."
Margaret Randall
Margaret Randall is a poet, writer, translator, photographer, and activist who has lived in New York, Mexico City, Havana, Cuba, Managua, Nicaragua, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, with short stays in North Vietnam and Lima, Peru. Her time in these places often coincided with major sociopolitical upheavals or pivotal historic moments. She edited an important bilingual literary magazine for eight years out of Mexico City and has known some of the great minds of her generation. When she returned to the United States, the US government ordered her deported because of opinions expressed in some of her books, and she was forced to wage a five-year battle for restoration of citizenship. Her correspondence with those she met along the way makes for exciting reading.
Randall is the recipient of numerous international awards and the author of over 200 books, four of which were published by New Village Press: My Life in 100 Objects, Artists in My Life, Risking a Somersault in the Air, and Luck.
More by Margaret Randall
Why Readwise Books?
Readwise Books is an ebook & audiobook platform that automatically logs how much you and your friends read, making it fun and easy to read more. Learn more →