Shut Up Shut Down

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Description

In the grand, narrative tradition of Gwendolyn Brooks and Edward Sanders, this riveting collection of poetic plays and photo-documentary poems exposes the human cost of corporate greed and gives voice to the growing crisis faced in communities across America.

"The several long poems that make up this book build into each other with devastating force and understatement, breaking poetic boundaries, regenerating the rich tradition of working-class literature."-Adrienne Rich

Mark Nowak is the author of the critically acclaimed debut book of poems Revenants, the editor of Xcp: Cross Cultural Poetics and the co-editor of Visit Teepee Town: Native Writings After the Detours. He grew up in Buffalo, New York and lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he is active in the labor movement.

Reviews

"I could liken this book to a verse drama or film in which voices mix and cross, documentary history meshes with dialogue, photography is framed and given meaning by language. But the cumulative effect of "Shut Up Shut Down" outdistances such description. The several long poems that make up this book build into each other with devastating force and understatement, breaking poetic boundaries, regenerating the rich tradition of working-class literature. Nowak is a highly gifted and conscious artist, carrying, like the oldest bards, a group narrative which must be told if his listeners are to understand who they are and on what their lives depend--and this, in our time, means all of us."--Adrienne Rich

Author Bio

A poet and labor activist heralded by Adrienne Rich for "regenerating the rich tradition of working-class literature," Mark Nowak regularly leads transnational poetry workshops between American and international trade unions. The author of Revenants and Shut Up Shut Down, he has also been a contributor to the Poetry Foundation's Harriet blog.