When books and words are banned, poetry reasserts its place as non-violent direct action, as LOVE IN ACTION. It emerges as a daring and bold practice to nourish an audacious community. This guide models a poetic practice, based on the four steps of nonviolence from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, to cultivate an audacious community that does not fear words or ideas, that risks care of its members, and that speaks truth to power to make the Beloved Community a reality.
One night, while reading this inventive and inspiring confluence of poetry, activism, and Kingian nonviolence, I was listening to one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite artists, Laura Nyro. In “Art of Love,” she asks,
"Sister, brother, Are we born to learn the art of love?”
The answer is what Nyro believed, is what Martin Luther King Jr. believed, and it’s what Mary Lynne Gasaway Hill and the other visionaries gathered in this collection believe and that’s a resounding, “Yes!” Not simply yes to learning the art of love but to practicing the art of love.
Browse the Love in Action: Poetic Activism for an Audacious Community Collections:
A Degenerating Sense of Nobodyness