The story of Than What, a Burmese citizen escaping military persecution, is the beginning of a series covering the narratives of free expression in Burma.
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Gade Tsering, a Tibetan blogger, writer, and poet, was one of the most recent contributors to High Peaks Pure Earth because of his outspoken voice in all his writings. He runs a widely popular Chinese language blog called Tibet, or After the Last Sky. Tsering aims to spread awareness about issues going on throughout the Tibetan region through his poetry
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For the Iraqi translator and poet Soheil Najm, poetry offers an opportunity to start a conversation across cultural barriers. Najm is the co-editor of Flowers of Flame: Unheard Voices of Iraq, an anthology of Iraqi poets in translation. He has also translated selections of work by Nikos Kazantzakis, Alasdair Gray, Ted Hughes, and Jose Saramago. Soheil Najm presents Ra’ad Zamil’s poem, offering a glimpse into the struggles of a generation of Iraqis who have survived Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship and are trying to make a life in Iraqi’s nascent democracy.
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As an estimated 60,000 barrels of oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico in one day of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill—the Library of Congress named W.S. Merwin the next Poet Laureate. Merwin, 82, is a staunch environmentalist who actively works to save the fragile ecosystem in his home state of Hawaii.
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Zaw Thet Htwe is a Burmese sports journalist. In 2008, Htwe was working with Burmese comedian Maung Thura -also known as Zargana- to deliver aid and support to the victims of Cyclone Nargis, which struck Burma on May 2, 2008. While working as humanitarians for the Burmese people, Htwe and Zargana were placed under arrest by the Junta government.
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This past Thursday Cave Canem held writers’ workshops in City of Asylum/Pittsburgh’s houses. That evening, they attended a reading by Colleen J. McElroy, Carl Phillips, Claudia Rankine, and Sapphire under a tent on Monterrey Street.
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Earlier this month, law enforcement officers pulled over a vehicle that ran a stop sign on Pittsburgh’s South Side. One passenger was arrested after he failed to produce immigration papers. According to immigration rights activist Sister Janice Vanderneck, the arresting officer scoffed, “Welcome to Arizona.”
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