Malala: Poems for Malala Yousafzai

by Joseph Hutchison (Editor), Andrea L. Watson (Editor)

On October 9, 2013, the one-year anniversary of 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai’s shooting by the Taliban for speaking out for the right of girls to an education, FutureCycle Press will publish Malala: Poems for Malala Yousafzai in her honor. Edited by poets Joseph Hutchison and Andrea L. Watson, men and women all over the world contributed work to this anthology as part of a global outpouring of support for Malala. FutureCycle Press will donate all proceeds from sales of the paperback and Kindle editions to the Malala Fund. To help raise awareness of her cause, a PDF version will also be available on the press website for free download and sharing.

Genres: Poetry

122 pages, Paperback

First published October 8, 2013

About the author

I was born on the westernmost edge of the Great Plains. My parents made sure there were lots of books in the house for my younger brother and me, but what I read most avidly was Poe, and to this day my work displays some Poe-ish qualities. I graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in 1972, and received an M.F.A. from the University of British Columbia in 1974, where I studied with the very underrated Irish expatriate poet, fiction writer and essayist George McWhirter; the musicality and imaginative openness of his work are qualities I aspire to in my own.

In the "real life" that followed graduate school I worked in a variety of jobs, from clerking in a book store to substitute teaching in and around Denver. I toyed for a long while with the idea of pursuing a Ph.D., but those were the heydays of Barthes and Derrida, who struck me as intellectual con-men (they still do), and I felt there was a good deal of bad faith in the whole process. I remember dipping my toes in those academic waters by auditing a class focused on Deconstruction. The professor in charge remarked that the theories we'd be studying were "mainly crap," but added, "Of course, you'll have to learn them if you hope to get a teaching job." A few months later a friend of mine, at the fag-end of his Ph.D. experience at the same institution, was blocked from writing his thesis on John Fowles, because (according to his advisor) "Fowles isn't a serious writer." The sheer idiocy of that statement soured me on further formal education, but what it boiled down to was the realization that I was too arrogant and pig-headed for such games. Luckily, I stumbled into a position as a staff marketing writer for a large Colorado-based bank network, and ever since I've mostly made my living as a writer for hire, although I occasionally teach both online and face-to-face courses for both undergraduate and graduate level students. I live with my wife, Melody Madonna, a marvelous yoga teacher (see her Harmony Hill Yoga site), in the mountains southwest of Denver.

In the all the years of my writing life, I've responded to and aspired to a quality in poetry that I can only call "clarity." Not that I'm interested in clarity at the expense of honest complexity; I despise those bland accounts of near-death sailing "into the Light." Light is not always benign: it blinds as often as it offers revelation, as anyone who's grown up in my part of the world would know. That contradiction, if it is one (it could be that contradiction exists only in the mind), fascinates me continually. When the writing is going well, it's the feeling of seeing into that alerts me to the fact. I get the same feeling from reading anyone else's good poem. In one entitled "Small Wild Crabs Delighting on Black Sand," James Wright says, "I don't want to know. I want to see." That's what I say.

Reviews

[FutureCycle Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are the publisher, so of course we give this anthology five stars. We could not possibly do justice to this remarkable anthology by excerpting any of it. Instead, we'll post the names of those who contributed to the effort. All proceeds from the sale of this anthology will be donated to the Malala Fund (www.malalafund.org).

"ALL FOR MALALA":

Rukhsana Ahmad, Diana Anhalt, Carol Alena Aronoff, Ed Baker, Ellen Bass, Sherry Stuart-Berman, John Brandi, April Bulmer, Kathleen Cain, Kathleen Cerveny, Joan Colby, Kathleen Dale, Conrad DiDiodato, Laura Eklund, Susan J. Erickson, Forugh Farrokhzad, Ilmana Fasih, CB Follett, Madelyn Garner, Katherine L. Gordon, Pat Hanahoe-Dosch, Jane Hilberry, Jane Hirshfield, Linda Hogan, Paul Hostovsky, Joseph Hutchison, Ana Istarú, Anita Jepson-Gilbert, Penn Kemp, Rita Brady Kiefer, Diane Kistner, Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé, Paula J. Lambert, Wayne Lee, Lyn Lifshin, Bobbi Lurie, Ken Meisel, Karla Linn Merrifield, Basia Miller, Kishwar Naheed, Ruth Obee, Colleen Powderly, Peg Quinn, Chris Ransick, Barbara Rockman, Joan Roberta Ryan, Marjorie Saiser, Aftab Yusuf Shaikh, Michael G. Smith, Mark Smith-Soto, Meryl Stratford, Judith Terzi, Andrea L. Watson, Sarah White, John Sibley Williams, Kathryn Winograd, Sholeh Wolpé, Diana Woodcock, Abigail Wyatt, Vassilis Zambaras

[Joan Colby · Rating 5 out of 5]

The anthology was conceived in 2012 after the shooting of Malala, a 15 year old Pakistani girl, who was targeted by the Taliban for promoting education for girls. She had been blogging and speaking out since age 11. Fortunately, she survived the attack and she continues to work for the cause of women's rights. A nominee for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize, she again has been threatened by the Taliban.
Poets all over the world answered the call of editors Joseph Hutchison and Andrea L. Watson in submitting poems for the anthology. Some of the poems are directed to Malala herself, others speak to the grief of oppression and the hope for change. All are heartfelt and, apart from the subject matter, maintain the artistic integrity of fine poetry.
Proceeds from Malala: Poems for Malala Yousafzai are donated to the Malala Fund.

[V · Rating 4 out of 5]

This thoughtful response to the shooting of Malala provokes the reader to reflect more deeply on the plight of uneducated girls and women. With a variety of poems in honor of Malala, this anthology, while short, is hardly a light read. In fact, some poems necessitate rereading while others will make goosebumps rise on the reader's arms. Knowing that all proceeds from sales will be donated to the
Malala Fund will also give readers satisfaction.

I won my copy of this book through a GoodReads FirstReads giveaway.

[Mustpha Kamara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is the best

[Winter Sophia Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful & Inspiring!