Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry

From Publishers Weekly
Aptly titled, this substantial anthology provides exposure to poets, emerging and established-Louis Simpson, Rita Dove, Luis Rodriguez-who write directly from the immigrant, ethnic and/or religious experience. The collection gives evidence of inequality and discrimination, and offers eyewitness accounts of the gross inconsistencies and bigotry of America. The poems tap into visceral energies, either born of or becoming a vitalizing anger; they bristle with a recognition of failed expectations. Thoughtful and attentive, the mother/daughter editorial team of the Gillans divides the book into sections concerned with "uprooting," "performing," "naming," "negotiating" and, finally and hopefully, "re-envisioning." The most moving poems concern a loss of home and custom, and the compromises struck in order to make life tolerable in a quietly (and not so quietly) intolerant society. Also distressing is work describing the intense desire of some poets to assimilate-efforts later remembered as humiliating. This collection is a must for anyone seeking an inclusive, unwincing catalogue of the American experience. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From School Library Journal
YA?Featuring well-and lesser-known American poets from a variety of cultural backgrounds, this volume presents fresh poems that tell the "American stories" of writers such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary Soto, Louise Erdrich, Ethelbert Miller, and Lucille Clifton. Selections are grouped by broad themes: "Uprooting," "Performing," "Naming," "Negotiating," and "Re-Envisioning." The editors deliberately selected works that "...did not create a pluralistic play of voices, or...make a simplistic call for diversity, but...that directly address the instability of American identity and confront the prevalence of cultural conflict and exchange within the United States." It is this focus and the conscious effort to avoid producing yet another supermarket survey of multicultural literature that make the book such a find. Brief biographical information is included.?Gretchen Portwood, W.T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VACopyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
"Land where my fathers died" begins a poem by Gregory Djanikian in this vibrant, much-needed collection in which the poets all struggle to retell their past, or, as Nellie Wong phrases it, to wonder, "Where is my country/where does it lie?" The last 15 years have seen a flowering of multicultural voices in American poetry, and readers will recognize many of the poets here, including Wong, Joy Harjo, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Lucille Clifton, and Mary Tallmountain. In five sections-uprooting, performing, naming, negotiating, and re-envisioning-the poets speak of their experiences in America: "a place/ where your skin/is your passport," as Yusef Komunyakaa observes. The poets here speak from the heart not only of the injustices they have suffered but also of their visions of a new land: "where all colors blend into one," says Judith Ortiz Cofer, "we will build our cities of light." Not all these poems are finely crafted, but all express voices too long silent. For all collections.Doris Lynch, Monroe Cty. P.L., Bloomington, Ind.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Imagine, if you will, a city bus in, say, Uptown in Chicago or any place else where a dozen American cultures collide. This anthology is like that. Singaporean feminist poet Shirley Geok-lin Lim is sitting next to Creek Indian Joy Harjo. Hawaiian Garrett Hongo is chatting with street-sounding David Hernandez. Enid Dame is talking about her radical Jewish family to African American Rita Dove. What could be cacophony turns instead into a kind of dissonant love song under the visionary editing of the mother-daughter Gillan team. The voices are vernacular and immediate, the net has been cast wide, and the organization is fine-tuned. An excellent anthology for the most general collections. Pat Monaghan


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This powerful and moving collection of poems stretches across the boundaries of skin color, language, ethnicity, and religion to give voice to the lives and experiences of ethnic Americans. With extraordinary honesty, dignity, and insight, these poems address common themes of assimilation, communication, and self-perception. In recording everyday life in our many American cultures, they displace the myths and stereotypes that pervade our culture.


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