We

(Paperback)

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We takes an unapologetically spiritual stance in bridging politicized divides, exploring conscious and unconscious prejudices with lyricism, warmth, and self-implicating humor, how we are shaped by and create our nation by how we see ourselves and others.

The poems investigate what unites us; how the personal is political, and the political is personal; changing our perceptions to heal families, friendships, and country of incivility and villainization by practicing greater compassion; trying to see past egos to souls, as "We" suggests in conversation with Whitman: "I celebrate my being, every atom/of myself and you, lamp and mirror/of all that is"; in a new Preamble to the Constitution; and in the feminist "Peace Hymn for the Republic." We begins with a non-partisan vision of soul, and ends driving a rural road at dawn in "State of the Union Aubade," both paeans to our common divinity.

Author Bio

April Ossmann is the author of Event Boundaries (awarded a Vermont Arts Council Creation Grant and a Vermont Book Award finalist) and Anxious Music--both from Four Way Books--and has published poetry widely in journals and anthologies. A former executive director of Alice James Books, she owns a poetry consulting business (www.aprilossmann.com) offering manuscript editing, publishing advice, tutorials, and workshops, and taught at the low-residency MFA in the Creative Writing program at Sierra Nevada College. She lives in White River Junction, Vermont.