Who Will Speak for America?

by Stephanie Feldman, Nathaniel Popkin

Overview

The editors and contributors to Who Will Speak for America? are passionate and justifiably angry voices providing a literary response to today’s political crisis.  Inspired by and drawing from the work of writers who participated in nationwide Writers Resist events in January 2017, this volume provides a collection of poems, stories, essays, and cartoons that wrestle with the meaning of America and American identity. The contributions—from established figures including Eileen Myles, Melissa Febos, Jericho Brown, and Madeleine Thien, as well as rising new voices, such as Carmen Maria Machado, Ganzeer, and Liana Finck—confront a country beset by racial injustice, poverty, misogyny, and violence. 

Contributions reflect on the terror of the first days after the 2016 Presidential election, but range well beyond it to interrogate the past and imagine possible American futures. 

Who Will Speak for America? inspires readers by emphasizing the power of patience, organizing, resilience and community. These moving works advance the conversation the American colonists began, and that generations of activists, in their efforts to perfect our union, have elevated and amplified.

All royalties will benefit the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439916247
Publisher:	Temple University Press
Publication date:	06/26/2018
Edition description:	1
Pages:	238
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Stephanie Feldman is the author of the novel The Angel of Losses, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection and winner of the Crawford Fantasy Award. Her stories and essays have appeared in Asimov's Electric Literature, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Maine Review, The Rumpus, and Vol. 1 Brooklyn.  Nathaniel Popkin is the author or co-author of five books, including the novel Everything is Borrowed and Philadelphia: Finding the Hidden City (Temple). He is a literary critic and essayist whose work appears in the Wall Street Journal, Kenyon Review, and other publications. He is the fiction review editor at Cleaver Magazine.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction: In Search of Our Future Stephanie Feldman Nathaniel Popkin 1

Preamble

Acceptance Speech (Nov 6 2016) Eileen Myles 15

Part I Speaking to America

America in Winter Joy Ladin 21

To Our Families

How I Should Have Known Trump Would Be Elected President Carmen Maria Machado 25

Teaching after Trump Melissa Febos 27

IUD Liana Finck 32

20 January 2017 Herman Beavers 33

Signs Diane McKinney-Whetstone 35

Morning Question in Bed after the Women's Marches across America Adam Vines 38

Four Days Sarah Rose Etter 39

Seasons of Grief Tahneer Oksman 41

When We See KC Trommer 49

Just to Get By Bassey Ikpi 50

To Ourselves

Theft Fran Wilde 57

Gaslighting Liana Finck 58

Three Days Ken Kalfus 59

Terror? What Is Terror? Liana Finck 70

Four Stories about Fighting Sandra Newman 71

The Accused by Khun Srun Madeleine Thien 74

Yellow for Ephemeral Sam J. Miller 86

The Retinue of Little Abysses Juan Martinez 91

Reclaiming Time Airea D. Matthews 95

To Our Americas

Year of the Rat Marc Anthony Richardson 101

Bullet Points Jericho Brown 106

Domestic Terrorism Cynthia Atkins 107

The Legend of Big and Fine Jericho Brown 109

Who Has the Right to Tell This Story? How Art and Artists Can Help and Harm People Experiencing Addiction Liz Moore 110

National Pastime Lynn Melnick 122

Strange Bedfellows Nancy Hightower 124

I Enter the Real Memory Alice Notley 129

Part II Speaking for America

Who Will Speak for Whom, America? Edwin Torres 135

For the Nation

On Being American Samira Ahmed 141

The Betweens Cynthia Arrieu-King 143

The Alternatives Liana Finck 153

Riddle Jericho Brown 154

A Simple Letter to My American Friends (Una Sencilla Carta a Mis Amigos Gringos) Carlos José Pérez Sámano 155

Untitled: A Comedy Herman Beavers 159

Pigskin, Beauty, Death, and a Huggable Rat Linh Dinh 161

America (after Allen Ginsberg) Craig Santos Perez 166

U.S. v. T.H.E.M. Liana Finck 169

I Want Milk, I Want Honey Mohja Kahf 170

Blood and Spirit Cynthia Dewi Oka 176

América Ana-Maurine Lara 181

For the Future

Life After Adrienne Celt 187

The Gates to Freedom Rene Denfeld 188

Struggle Liana Finck 191

The End of the Incarnation Malka Older 192

If You Can Keep It Veronica Scott Esposito 195

Charlie and the Aliens Ganzeer 204

Dreaming in Crayon Craig Santos Perez 212

Because Change Was the Ocean and We Lived by Her Mercy Charlie Jane Anders 213

Contributors 227

Editorial Reviews

06/04/2018
This collection of political poetry and prose presents a wide and well-selected array of moderate, progressive, and radical voices united in opposition to Donald Trump’s presidency, including such noted authors as Melissa Febos, Carmen Maria Machado, and Eileen Myles. As a “preamble” to the collection, Myles provides a prose piece entitled “Acceptance Speech (Nov 6, 2016)” that names various challenges facing Americans, such as white supremacy and homelessness, while imagining an alternate reality in which these problems are addressed. Machado’s poem “How I Should Have Known Trump Would Be Elected President” is a powerful and succinct reflection on encountering racism and homophobia, such as when “I was sitting in a quiet car with my mother and two of her sisters, and one of them said, ‘I just don’t believe in gay people,’ and I laughed, startled.” The selections vary in tone, ranging from Febos’s conciliatory essay “Teaching After Trump,” on reaching out to Trump-leaning students, to Craig Santos Perez’s fiery poem “America” (“America when will you be democratic/ When will you take down both your racist flags?”). Thanks to this variety, the collection should appeal to an equally wide range of readers who share the authors’ opposition to the 45th president. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"Feldman and Popkin gather a medley of diverse voices to reflect on politics, society, and culture in contemporary America. Essays, poems, fiction, photographs, and cartoons bristle with emotion from contributors responding to issues they consider most urgent: racism, sexism, poverty, and injustice.... A heartfelt and thoughtful collection."—Kirkus Reviews

"Panoramic in scope and exquisite in execution, Who Will Speak for America? is a platform for some of the country's sharpest minds to artistically meditate on life during and after the reign of our Orange Mussolini."—Molly Crabapple, author of Drawing Blood and (with Marwan Hisham) Brothers of the Gun: A Memoir of the Syrian War

"This collection of political poetry and prose presents a wide and well-selected array of moderate, progressive, and radical voices united in opposition to Donald Trump’s presidency.... [Carmen Maria] Machado’s poem 'How I Should Have Known Trump Would Be Elected President' is a powerful and succinct reflection on encountering racism and homophobia.... The selections vary in tone... Thanks to this variety, the collection should appeal to an equally wide range of readers who share the authors’ opposition to the 45th president."—Publisher's Weekly

From the Publisher

2018-04-16
Feldman (The Angel of Losses, 2014) and Popkin (Everything Is Borrowed, 2018, etc.) gather a medley of diverse voices to reflect on politics, society, and culture in contemporary America.Essays, poems, fiction, photographs, and cartoons bristle with emotion from contributors responding to issues they consider most urgent: racism, sexism, poverty, and injustice. Nancy Hightower, who grew up in the evangelical South, captures the tenor of the collection when she urges the church, academia, and publishing—which she sees as being largely white—to break down racial boundaries and become "filled with, and overflowing with diversity." She suggests that "if those in the literary arts want to transform the landscape of America, they need to be better evangelicals." By that, she means that they must "write and publish work that speaks to students in the Bronx and LGBTQ teenagers in Oklahoma." Inclusivity, she asserts, would produce a "glorious rhetorical army" to resist the president "and his corrupt administration." Not surprisingly, many contributors rail against Donald Trump. Fiction writer Carmen Maria Machado cites her observations of racism and homophobia as reasons she should have known that Trump would be elected president. Poet, novelist, and creative nonfiction writer Samira Ahmed, who was born in India, takes on racism, reporting that she has been called terrorist, rag head, and sand nigger. "You realize, too young, that racists fail geography," she writes, "but that their epithets and perverted patriotism can still shatter moments of your childhood." Keeping silent is no adequate response, she warns: "in this land of the free and home of the brave, you plant yourself. / Like a flag." Cartoonist Liana Finck depicts a map of America with U.S. crossed out, substituted by T. H. E. M. Novelist Diane McKinney-Whetstone celebrates the "hopeful vibe" she felt when she participated in the Women's March. Hope counters an undercurrent of despair for many contributors: "I don't want to give up the struggle," says a despondent individual drawn by Finck. "I want to win and move on."A heartfelt and thoughtful collection.

Kirkus Reviews