ep. 192 - New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust

Published by Vallentine Mitchell of London, publisher of the first English language edition of Anne Frank's diary, New Voices is a ground-breaking multigenre book. The editors selected 58 distinct images from noted collections consisting of vintage photography, propaganda posters, newsreel stills and the like, matching each to a poet, short story or flash fiction writer, plus features by essayists as well. Each writer interpreted these “silent witnesses” from the period in their own unique way, creating new perspectives for our times. Together this diverse group, including writers of color, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, LGBTQ, prominent and emerging writers, from around the world have contributed a powerful body of work, based on the Holocaust, that challenges worrying international trends of xenophobia, anti-democratic movements and alternative truths enabled by social media by recognizing the power of art to portray truth. This episode will feature foreword contributor Joy Ladin, author of eleven books including most recently, the revised second edition of The Book of Anna, winner of the 2021 National Jewish Book Award for poetry and co-editor Howard Debs, former Rattle "Ekphrastic Challenge" artist and guest editor whose chapbook Political is winner of the 2021 American Writing Awards in poetry, along with contributors reading from their work in the book including: Ellen Bass, Lois P. Jones, Geoffrey Philp, Alex Escude, Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum, Lauren Camp, Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach and Jacqueline Osherow. Book cover image: "Symbols: The World Entire" by Amy E. Bartell Find much more at: https://newvoicesproject.org/ As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week’s Prompt: Write a poem about something you will never do. Next Week’s Prompt: Find a photograph at least 100 years old that includes a person. Write a poem as a letter to that person. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.