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240-page book
Edited by Andrew Himes with Jan Bultmann and others
Published by Whit Press, Seattle, WA

Table of Contents plus Introduction by Andrew Himes

ISBN: 0-9720205-3-5

Includes poetry, essays, and narratives based on interviews conducted for the feature-length documentary film Voices in Wartime.

The Voices in Wartime Anthology explores the experience of war through the literary arts from ancient times to the present. The anthology includes the voices of US veterans of the Iraq war; experts on war trauma and the history of war; and poets from around the world. It includes:

  • Jose Diaz, US Army Reserve military policeman and father of two. He returned to the US in the fall of 2004 after serving a year’s deployment in Iraq as a military police sergeant in the Army Reserves. Poetry by Jose Diaz. Feature on Jose Diaz in NY Times.
  • Brian Turner, who earned an MFA in Creative Writing (poetry) from the University of Oregon, and then served in the US Army for seven years. He was an infantry team leader in Iraq for a year beginning November 2003, and served with the Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. Poetry by Brian Turner.
  • Lt. General William Lennox, superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point. He wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on American war poetry. Interview with Lt. General William Lennox.
  • Paul Mysliwiec, US Army First Lieutenant who led his unit through the invasion of Baghdad in spring 2003 and then spent months searching for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Interview with Paul Mysliwiec.
  • Jonathan Shay, psychiatrist for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs in Boston. Shay treats combat veterans with severe psychological injuries and is the author of the best-selling books "Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character," and "Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming." Interview with Dr. Jonathan Shay.
  • Emily Warn, a poet, teacher, and activist—and the author of "The Novice Insomniac" and three other collections of poetry. Interview and poetry from Emily Warn.
  • Chris Hedges, a former "New York Times" war correspondent with 15 years of experience in places such as El Salvador, Kosovo, and the Persian Gulf. He shared a 2002 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of global terrorism. Interview with Chris Hedges.
  • Andrew Himes, Executive Producer of Voices in Wartime and director of Beyond Wartime. Essays by Andrew Himes.
  • David Connolly, poet and veteran who served honorably in Vietnam with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. Interview and poetry from David Connolly.
  • Wilfred Owen, British soldier-poet during the First World War. Died in combat a week before the Armistice in 1918. Poetry by Wilfred Owen.
  • Alix Wilber, novelist and Co-Executive Producer of Voices in Wartime. Essay by Alix Wilber.
  • Jonathan Schell, author of Unconquerable World, and Fate of the Earth. Interview with Jonathan Schell.
  • Craig White, NBC cameraman, embedded with the 3rd Infantry Division, one of the first US Army units to enter Baghdad in April 2003. Interview with Craig White.
  • Sinan Antoon, Iraqi poet, filmmaker, and human rights activist. Interview and poetry from Sinan Antoon.
  • Chris Abani, Nigerian human rights activist and refugee. Interview and poetry from Chris Abani.
  • Nguyen Duy, widely considered the most important Vietnamese poet of his generation. Poetry by Nguyen Duy.
  • Antonieta Villamil, Columbian poet, peace and human rights activist. Interview and poetry from Antonieta Villamil.
  • Beverly Boos, executive director of Opening of the Heart. Interview with Beverly Boos.
  • Sheila Sebron, disabled, African-American Air Force veteran living with chronic PTSD and severe pain. Interview with Sheila Sebron.
  • John Henry Parker, veteran and founder of Veterans and Families. Interview with John Henry Parker.

"If history and literature have taught us anything," said anthology editor and film producer Andrew Himes, "it is that in the midst of trauma, violence and death, it is the poets who help us make sense of the senseless. In a world turned upside down, listening attentively to the stories of others can open our hearts, our minds, and point the way to change."

Whit Press Publisher Claudia Mauro says of the book, "We are becoming strangely indifferent and dangerously numb to the often sanitized images of war we’re saturated with. The interviews and poems in the Voices in Wartime Anthology let us look straight and hard into the truth of war. Like the film, this book opens our eyes and wakes up our hearts."

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About the book

"This anthology does not contain the words of politicians or pundits," said Andrew Himes, editor of the anthology and executive producer of the film Voices in Wartime. "Instead, it features active-duty soldiers, veterans, torture victims, war correspondents, the families of the disappeared and the dead, poets, peace activists—the compelling responses of unique, individual human beings to the experience of war. Their poetry springs from unrelenting honesty, personal grief and deep compassion, and is infused with an understanding of hardship and suffering."

Glowing film reviews from NY Times, NY Post, TV Guide, Seattle Times/PI, etc.

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Featured Essays

Robert Taylor

Broken Hearts: Thawing the Holy in Us

Sermon at Saint Mark’s

The Very Reverend Robert V. Taylor The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, July 30, 2006 2 Kings 2:1-15; Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-16 & Mark 6:45-52

On Thursday I was on the website of Voices in Wartime reflecting on a passage by Parker Palmer about broken hearts.ii He suggests two ways to picture a broken heart. The first is...

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Featured Links

Andrew Himes

PeaceTags.com

PeaceTags are beautiful sterling silver dog tags that reflect words of peace.

More than a beautiful pendant…
The mission of PeaceTags™ is to ignite peace in our hearts, in our homes and in our world through spreading “the words of the wise” engraved on beautiful sterling silver “dog-tags.”

Throughout the ages, wise men and women from diverse religions, cultures and ideologies have spoken...

http://peacetags.com


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Customer Reviews

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918 out of 2042 people found the following review helpful:

  -  One of the most important books to emerge in the wake of the Iraq war - posted Thursday, February 23, 2006

Reviewer: Demetria Martinez (Albuquerque,NM)

I taught a three and a half week class (three hours a day) at Colorado College called "Poet as Witness to War." Miraculously, the Voices anthology had just come out, along with the DVD. The readings were fantastic and formed the basis for daily discussions and provided a framework for writing poetry about war. The DVD added a whole extra dimension. All this was crucial, for many of my students are removed from the current war, or imagine that they are. But soon they began to recall family stories, (and silences) about Vietnam, World War II and the Korean War. They wrote of these experiences and then waded into the waters, so to speak, of Iraq. The anthology and film were profoundly meaningful to a student who is a soldier, due to be deployed to Iraq this summer. He opposes the war and the writings of soldiers and veterans made him feel less alone. He took the class because he wants to "bear witness" as a soldier in Iraq and plans to continue writing while there. Too, he fears that he will come back with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in some form and he believes that writing will be a part of his healing. The beauty of the anthology is that it is not "anti-soldier." Instead, it stresses that wars harm all people, soldiers, civilians of course, and societies. It asks the question, how do we heal through the arts? These are perfect points of departure for classes that invariably include young people vaguely in favor of the current war. We all came away with deep convictions about the true costs of war. This anthology will, I believe, go down in history as one of the most important books to emerge in the wake of the Iraq war. Educators cannot go wrong using it in their classes.

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