Silences of War: Erasure within Conflict

Abstract

Silences of War:Erasure within Conflict Hadara Bar-Nadav (bio) and Jameelah Lang (bio) This folio affirms that silence has a voice, even in times of war, and here are writers who prove it. In the following poems, short stories, essays, and hybrid works, "war" is literal and metaphoric, physical and emotional, historical, familial, and personal. War is waged in secret unmapped towns, on military bases and in prisons, in suburban neighborhoods and on city streets, on bodies and in bedrooms, and in language itself. These authors explore and articulate silence and erasure in times of war; we invite readers to share and participate in the knowledge of what those in positions of power would stifle. These stories and the voices that unlock them stand against forces that breed silence: oppressive powers that wrest control of how our stories are told, historical patterns of violence aimed at marginalized people and perspectives, threats and violence leveled against those who would tell stories counter to dominant narratives. To name this silence and tell its stories in the face of oppression is among the storyteller's most sacred and historic functions: to stand up—in person or on the page—and speak that which has been, or would be, quelched so that it might take firm root in the vital exchange between teller and audience. If we tune our ears and recalibrate our senses, which these authors ask us to do, entire worlds open up, despite the blaring headlines and politicians, despite the loudest voices in all the rooms. Here are stories of trauma, resilience, and resistance. A language beneath the language, a language with soil in its teeth. Here are authors and artists who write and come from Australia, China, El Salvador, India, Israel, Kolkata, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine, Paris, the Philippines, Sarajevo, Shanghai, Syria, Tehran, Ukraine, and the United States. Each of their voices necessary as bread. Voices across oceans and nations and battlefields and borders. Voices rising through the cracks between words, caked in earth, saliva, and ink. By carving these lived experiences, histories, and visions of the world into existence, the authors featured in this folio assert the legitimacy of vantage points that have often been marginalized. Here, we witness tellers and their stories reject the ways that history and its victors overwrite, or rewrite, those who stand against prevailing narratives. Here, by animating silence into artistic expression that demands to be heard, these writers have dared to tell, and by telling, to resist. At the same time, we recognize that there are voices and narratives that are missing from this folio, and we hope additions to this conversation continue for many years to come. It may be that war and destruction will be ever-present in our lives, but so, too, is art and creation. It is our honor to introduce [End Page 129] these poems, short stories, essays, and hybrid works, which are brutal, stunning, and ultimately life-affirming. As a special note, we also want to recognize Noah Eli Gordon and his poem "In Praise of Nectar and Ambrosia." Noah passed away before his poem appeared in print. Our sincere thanks to Sommer Browning for her assistance in publishing his work, which we are grateful to include in this folio. [End Page 130] Hadara Bar-Nadav Hadara Bar-Nadav is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, the Lucille Medwick Award from the Poetry Society of America, and other honors. Her award-winning books include The Singing Pills (Four Way Books, forthcoming), awarded the Levis Prize; The New Nudity (Saturnalia Books, 2017); Lullaby (with Exit Sign) (Saturnalia Books, 2013), awarded the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize; The Frame Called Ruin (New Issues, 2012), Editor's Selection/Runner Up for the Green Rose Prize; and A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight (Margie/Intuit House, 2007), awarded the Margie Book Prize. She is also the author of two chapbooks, Fountain and Furnace (Tupelo Press, 2015), awarded the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize, and Show Me Yours (Laurel Review/Green Tower Press 2010), awarded the Midwest Poets Series Prize. In addition, she is co-author with Michelle Boisseau of the best-selling textbook Writing Poems...