Books » Solid Ground
Upheaval, violence, chasm and split. Such words describe San Francisco's Great Earthquake of 1906, and other temblors on the San Andreas Fault where the Pacific and North American Plates slide and grind. Stress, displacement, turbulence, rupture: words that also describe the lives of many contemporary youth who live along the metaphoric fautlines of immigration, economic inequity, turf wars, broken hearts, and the gunning down of young friends.
In commemoration of the 1906 earthquake, Judith gathered poems written by WritersCorps youth in public schools, detention centers, halfway houses, after-school programs, and many other community settings. For many young poets, the act of writing itself comes to provide solid ground on which they can rest and from which they can speak.