Co-editors Karla Linn Merrifield and Dwain Wilder have assembled the first anthology of its type in the world to inspire readers to take action on behalf of the 99%.
"Poets here have left their quiet corners to hit the streets to encourage their neighbors to address the needs of the homeless…to fight side by side with besieged homeowners who are facing foreclosure...to eliminate corporate “personhood” and inordinate corporate influence on Capital Hill. We want readers to learn; we want them to act,” said Merrifield, author of six books of poetry.
Diverse Voices, Diverse Styles
Humor and rage, compassion and irony and so much more! Liberty’s Vigil, The Occupy Anthology may have a single unifying theme, but its poets represent a wide range of viewpoints and styles. You’ll find in the book’s pages distinguished poetic masters such as William Heyen and Francisco X. Alarcón as well as poets just launching their careers. And, the 99 poets’ styles range from free verse to tanka to villanelle to sestina to….
Follow Liberty’s Vigil Online
It’s easy to keep up with Liberty’s Vigil and its activist poets. News of readings held by contributors will be posted on the FootHills Publishing web site (www.foothillspublishing.com.) as well as on Liberty’s Vigil group wall page on Facebook.
Sales to Support Income Equality
FootHills is contributing 20 percent of proceeds from sales of Liberty’s Vigil to the Occupy Movement. For details, please contact the publisher.
Available Now
Liberty’s Vigil, The Occupy Anthology: 99 Poets among the 99% (128 pages) is available for $20.00 at selected bookstores nationwide – ISBN 978-0-931053-81-8 -- and from FootHills Publishing at www.foothillspublishing.com. FootHills Publishing, celebrating its 26th anniversary this year, is headquartered in Wheeler Hill, N.Y. Michael Czarnecki, publisher, is available at (607) 566-3881.
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About the Editors
A long-time environmental activist and a National Park Artist-in-Residence, Karla Linn Merrifield has seen hundreds of her poems appear in dozens of publications as well as in many anthologies. She has six books to her credit, including Godwit: Poems of Canada (FootHills Publishing), which received the 2009 Andrew Eiseman Writers Award for Poetry, and her new chapbook, The Urn, from Finishing Line Press. Forthcoming from Salmon Press is her full-length collection Athabaskan Fractal and Other Poems of the Far North, and The Ice Decides: Poems of Antarctica from FLP.
She and her husband Roger M. Weir co-edited THE DIRE ELEGIES: 59 Poets on Endangered Species of North America, also from FootHills. Currently in the works is a book of technologically themed poems, The Gizmo Girl’s Diary, a collection of poems reflecting on the Age of Technology, and Virus in the Song, poems in memoriam to her brother. She was founding poetry editor of Sea Stories, and is now book reviewer and assistant editor for The Centrifugal Eye (www.centrifugaleye.com). A graduate of The College at Brockport (SUNY), where she earned an MA in Creative Writing-Poetry, she teaches at Writers & Books, Rochester, NY. You can read more about her and sample her poems and photographs at http://karlalinn.blogspot.com. She resides in Kent, NY, and winters in North Fort Myers, FL.
Dwain Wilder, a native of a small town outside Dallas, moved to Rochester, NY, in 1970 to study Zen Buddhism. He has had a varied career as Navy flight crew member, research technician, software engineer, and luthier (builder of stringed musical instruments). Dwain had leadership roles in the Civil Rights and Anti-Vietnam War Movements, as a staff member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Project Dialogue, and coordinator of the Southern Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam. In this latter capacity, he worked closely with students, Quakers, pacifists and civil rights field workers across the South to organize the only South-wide Anti-War March, on Lincoln’s Birthday, Feb 12, 1967. He was also security marshal for the 1967 Fifth Avenue Parade against the War, worked with Staughton Lynd as a community organizer in New Haven, and as an organizer for the 1967 People’s Congress, an attempt to nonviolently occupy the House of Representatives in Washington.
Dwain graduated with honors from Yale with a degree in American Studies (History of Technology and Literature). He is a poet and essayist whose work has been published in various small poetry periodicals and collections. His poetry collection, Under the Only Moon, was published by FootHills Publishing in August 2011.
Dwain lives with his wife and their dog and parrot in a quaint farmhouse near a large park. He currently makes his livelihood in lutherie, and his Appalachian dulcimers are held in high regard, both in the U.S. and abroad.
About the Publisher
Publishing America's poets for 26 years, FootHills Publishing is a family-owned-and- operated concern based in Wheeler, NY. Each copy of its hundreds of titles is lovingly hand-sewn, making for a more beautiful reading experience. Visit FootHills at www.foothillspublishing.com.