Amanda Newell: “The collection was inspired by my former high school student Adam, who nearly died while serving in Afghanistan when a command-controlled improvised explosive device was detonated beneath the M-ATV he was driving. In school, Adam loved literature and was drawn in particular to the literature of war. During his long recovery, I would visit him in the VA hospitals with some of his other teachers, and I often found myself struck by the power of the war narrative and how its particular mythology stubbornly persists in the face of human destruction.” (web)
Amanda Newell: “This poem responds to one of the #stopthebans abortion rallies that were happening across the nation. Several of my students asked me if I wanted to go, so we all went together to the Annapolis rally. As the speaker mentions in the poem, I was really worried about my students’ safety, who among the crowd might be hiding with a gun, and what it means to be ‘safe’ at a time when the female body is under siege in ways I have never imagined. I was also at the Annapolis mall last year when the Capital-Gazette shooting happened across the street, so I know firsthand how quickly violence happens, and sadly, how simply exposed we all are at all times—even by our own bodies, which betray us, too.” (web)