There is energy in these poems by Michael Rothenberg, fueled by deaths in war, the police killing of 13-year-old Andy Lopez in Santa Rosa, and the deaths of mind and spirit within the malaise of present-day capitalist realities / complexities / obscenities. If truth in ideas and feeling are rare in the official discourse, let these poems ride like galloping horses to break free the truths trapped in the hi-def synthesized madness.
-Luis J. Rodriguez, Poet Laureate of Los Angeles and author of
My Nature is Hunger
I've often heard "If you're not angry, you're not paying attention." In Wildflowers for the Bullies Michael Rothenberg is paying pointed attention to our planet, its people, its ecology, its wars, and in some moments its potential for positive change. He asks necessary and thoughtful questions, "Can poetry make death beautiful?" "Can I hold the wind together?" He is clear that his poetry is not a "poetry with well-articulated parlor room niceness" while declaiming that "We will paint the air black with our voices." In poetry and in prose he bids us to pay attention and be moved to join those who are making change. He also takes us on a thoughtful tour of the USSR, a land of beauty and
contradictions and the many people who see and examine what they see in their homeland. In poetry and prose Rothenberg does present the bullies with wildflowers, while making it clear that flowers of every kind will continue to bloom despite the bullies.
-devorah major, San Francisco Poet Laureate Emeritus
Michael Rothenberg has long been a tireless organizer-for poetry and with poetry-to make the world a kinder place. In Wildflowers for the Bullies, Rothenberg utters a cri de coeur against
the viciousness that is in us and around us, slathered with imperial static. His words pour over the brim of the page, both funny and scary. Rothenberg writes in the key of Ginsberg, if Ginsberg had lived to see Moloch win.
-Philip Metres, activist and author of Sand Opera (Alice James, 2015)
It's not often that a collection of poetry grabs and grips the reader like Wildflowers for the Bullies by Michael Rothenberg. In it, he bravely and beautifully places squarely before us the ugly realities of the world we live in. His words bring a stark clarity and slow down that world to a crawl from day to agonizing day.
-Jawanza Dumisani, author of Black Raising Cane Over Red (Glover Lane Press, 2014).
In Wildflowers for the Bullies, Rothenberg takes energetic poetic aim at some of the most glaring political issues of the day, including racism, economic injustice, police brutality, and our overly commercialized culture industry with its "zombie billboards" and "sponsored straightjackets." In his deeply moving poem, "War," Rothenberg uses varied and inventively phrased perspectives ("We imagine the shark a killing machine / We become the killing machine") to note how thoroughly the
idea of war has infiltrated Americans' daily lives, offering "love as the answer."
-Eliot Katz, author of Unlocking the Exits (Coffee House Press) and The Poetry and Politics of Allen Ginsberg (Beatdom Books).
