Margaret Randall

Arguably one of the most important independent literary magazines of the 1960s, El Corno Emplumado/The Plumed Horn made new work from the South available in the North and vice versa. Its scope exceeded that of any clique or group, publishing the most exciting new work of the time along with texts by established writers, its only criterion being quality. Each bilingual quarterly issue included a Letter Section, which reproduced correspondence from contributors and readers – among them: Thomas Merton, Ernesto Cardenal, Julio Cortázar, Denise Levertov, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Raquel Jodorowsky, Clayton Eshleman, and Cecilia Vicuña. They wrote to us about their lives and communities, ideas and aspirations. In these letters, arguments about important issues of the day also took place. Personal and political stories offer a sense of how creative people lived and worked, and those stories continue to have relevance in today's very different world.

Arguably one of the most important independent literary magazines of the 1960s, El Corno Emplumado/The Plumed Horn made new work from the South available in the North and vice versa. Its scope exceeded that of any clique or group, publishing the most exciting new work of the time along with texts by established writers, its only criterion being quality. Each bilingual quarterly issue included a Letter Section, which reproduced correspondence from contributors and readers – among them: Thomas Merton, Ernesto Cardenal, Julio Cortázar, Denise Levertov, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Raquel Jodorowsky, Clayton Eshleman, and Cecilia Vicuña. They wrote to us about their lives and communities, ideas and aspirations. In these letters, arguments about important issues of the day also took place. Personal and political stories offer a sense of how creative people lived and worked, and those stories continue to have relevance in today's very different world.

A collection of letters exchanged between the author and four "outriders"—artists, writers, and activists who risk everything to confront censorship, injustice, and the constraints of convention In More Letters from the Edge, Margaret Randall continues her exploration of the power of correspondence, revealing the intimate and unguarded exchanges that define lives lived at the margins of convention. Through letters, interviews, and fragments of memory, she invites us into conversations with four fearlessly radical writers, artists, and activists: Arturo Arango, Kathy Boudin, Jane Norling, and Robert Schweitzer. Their voices—translated, remembered, and preserved—offer urgent reflections on risk, resistance, and the act of making meaning in a world that, now more than ever, seeks to silence dissent. More than historical artifacts, these conversations bridge past and present, proving that the fight for creative and political integrity is never confined to a single era. More Letters from the Edge is a testament to those who push against the edges, opening doors for all who follow.

A collection of letters exchanged between the author and four "outriders"—artists, writers, and activists who risk everything to confront censorship, injustice, and the constraints of convention In More Letters from the Edge, Margaret Randall continues her exploration of the power of correspondence, revealing the intimate and unguarded exchanges that define lives lived at the margins of convention. Through letters, interviews, and fragments of memory, she invites us into conversations with four fearlessly radical writers, artists, and activists: Arturo Arango, Kathy Boudin, Jane Norling, and Robert Schweitzer. Their voices—translated, remembered, and preserved—offer urgent reflections on risk, resistance, and the act of making meaning in a world that, now more than ever, seeks to silence dissent. More than historical artifacts, these conversations bridge past and present, proving that the fight for creative and political integrity is never confined to a single era. More Letters from the Edge is a testament to those who push against the edges, opening doors for all who follow.

By excerpting from letters she exchanged with five irreverent writers and artists, Margaret Randall constructs conversations that open windows on four pivotal moments in her life and on world events. This correspondence touches on important themes, such as social change, identity, art, and creative integrity—issues that were relevant then and remain so today. The letters are sometimes philosophical, sometimes intimate, and deal with family life as well as major creative projects, including literary political publishing, often taken on against daunting odds. Society continuously tries to subsume or shape influential rebel minds to its interests. Every generation has those who will not allow themselves to be silenced or controlled. This book is exciting evidence of this. Chapters: I.Walter Lowenfels: A Poet Who Laughed at Time II.Laurette Séjourné: A Woman with Pick and Shovel and Arnaldo Orfila: A Man Who Filled a Century III.Susan Sherman: A Woman Before Her Time IV.Greg Smith: A Painter Who Listens to Silence

By excerpting from letters she exchanged with five irreverent writers and artists, Margaret Randall constructs conversations that open windows on four pivotal moments in her life and on world events. This correspondence touches on important themes, such as social change, identity, art, and creative integrity—issues that were relevant then and remain so today. The letters are sometimes philosophical, sometimes intimate, and deal with family life as well as major creative projects, including literary political publishing, often taken on against daunting odds. Society continuously tries to subsume or shape influential rebel minds to its interests. Every generation has those who will not allow themselves to be silenced or controlled. This book is exciting evidence of this. Chapters: I.Walter Lowenfels: A Poet Who Laughed at Time II.Laurette Séjourné: A Woman with Pick and Shovel and Arnaldo Orfila: A Man Who Filled a Century III.Susan Sherman: A Woman Before Her Time IV.Greg Smith: A Painter Who Listens to Silence

The legendary Margaret Randall's latest essays explore language, art, integrity, politics, and history, all through the passionate lenses of social justice and creative expression - "a profound and passionate rumination.... Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand some of the most important questions of our times" (Susan Sherman).

The legendary Margaret Randall's latest work shines as some of her finest poetry yet, with explorations of the many senses of home. As Sandra Cisneros says of this book: "Home is not something inherited, but an act as creative as writing a poem. This book is a homecoming. I celebrate with you."

Fearless personal essays from a treasured feminist poet and activist Luck is a collection of essays covering such topics as memory, language, landscape, poetry, anger, sex, food, pandemics, war, violence, feminism, lies, imagination, death, power, identity, and of course luck. Some are full-blown explorations, others brief riffs. Some are prose poetry, others straightforward prose. The author combines scholarly research with personal experience, producing texts both intimate and illuminating. Always attentive to the world around her and the one within, Randall has brought us her most relevant and powerful essays to date.

Fearless personal essays from a treasured feminist poet and activist Luck is a collection of essays covering such topics as memory, language, landscape, poetry, anger, sex, food, pandemics, war, violence, feminism, lies, imagination, death, power, identity, and of course luck. Some are full-blown explorations, others brief riffs. Some are prose poetry, others straightforward prose. The author combines scholarly research with personal experience, producing texts both intimate and illuminating. Always attentive to the world around her and the one within, Randall has brought us her most relevant and powerful essays to date.

Time’s Language I (Wings Press, 2018) included selections from Margaret Randall’ s poetry collections beginning with her first self-published book in 1959 and ending six decades later. Time’s Language II picks up where its predecessor left off, enabling readers to savour Randall’s later, more mature, work. Here are robust selections from Against Atrocity, Out of Violence into Poetry, Stormclouds Like Unkept Promises, Vertigo of Risk, Your Answer is Your Map, and Home, as well as Starfish on a Beach--the author’ s poetic response to the Covid pandemic--and her most recent as yet uncollected production. Together, the two volumes present the range and depth of a poet whose work belongs to two centuries and records a woman’ s intimate life as well as her personal involvement with some of the most dramatic events of our time. A life of poetry in its fullest expression!

Margaret Randall's latest poetry collection is perhaps her finest work yet. Vertigo of Risk is, as Denise Ch vez calls it, Randall's Master Opus-a "Testimonio to a life lived in the blessed search of Truth." The series of poems called "Dearest," which read as letters to friends and inspirations, leads into a sharpened assembly of pieces that both celebrates and champions life and art, all with Randall's rich candor and ear for language throughout.

During the strange and unsettling second year of COVID-19, Margaret Randall suddenly found herself writing short stories. The author of over 150 books of poetry, essays, biography, nonfiction and translations, Lupe’s Dream and Other Stories is her first collection of fiction. These stories are as unsettling as the times. In one way or another, each references life in a near-future where scarcities have become dramatic, space strangely unfamiliar, and time moves in unexpected directions. After several intense months of writing, the stories stopped as mysteriously as they’d begun.

First revised edition of interviews with 14 prominent activists whose writings influenced the 1979 Nicaraguan revolution and help us understand present-day Nicaragua Margaret Randall presents a dynamic collection of personal interviews with Nicaragua's most important writer-revolutionaries who played major roles in the 1979 revolution and the subsequent reconstruction. This revised first edition includes a new preface and additional notes that frame the narrative in high relevance to the present day. The featured writer-activists speak of their work and practical tasks in constructing a new society. Among the writers included are Gioconda Belli, Tomás Borge, Omar Cabezas, Ernesto Cardenal, Vidaluz Menéses, Julio Valle-Castillo, and Daisy Zamora. The work also features 50 evocative photographs from the era by Margaret Randall.

First revised edition of interviews with 14 prominent activists whose writings influenced the 1979 Nicaraguan revolution and help us understand present-day Nicaragua Margaret Randall presents a dynamic collection of personal interviews with Nicaragua's most important writer-revolutionaries who played major roles in the 1979 revolution and the subsequent reconstruction. This revised first edition includes a new preface and additional notes that frame the narrative in high relevance to the present day. The featured writer-activists speak of their work and practical tasks in constructing a new society. Among the writers included are Gioconda Belli, Tomás Borge, Omar Cabezas, Ernesto Cardenal, Vidaluz Menéses, Julio Valle-Castillo, and Daisy Zamora. The work also features 50 evocative photographs from the era by Margaret Randall.

Margaret Randall reveals personal stories and profound insights about the artists who most influenced her life. Artists in My Life is a collection of intimate and conversational accounts of the visual artists that have impacted the renowned poet activist Margaret Randall on her own journey as an artist. Randall writes of each relationship through multiple lenses: as makers of art, social commentators, women in a world dominated by male values, and in solitude or collaboration with communities and the larger artistic arena. Each story offers insight into the artist's life and work, and analyses the impact it had on Randall's own work and its impact on the larger art community. The work strives to answer bigger questions about visual art as a whole and its lasting political influence on the world stage. Randalls describes her motivations: "I go beneath the surface, asking questions and telling stories. I have wanted to answer questions such as: Why is it that visual art—drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, architecture—grabs me and, in particular instances, feels as if it changes me at the molecular level? How do art and memory interact? How do reason and intuition come together in art? Do women and men make art differently? Does great art change the viewer? Does it change the artist? How does art travel through time?"

The legendary feminist and revolutionary Margaret Randall once again turns her eye to keen, insightful poetry. Stormclouds Like Unkept Promises is both political and personal as one, with turns into mythology and language. For the first time, this book publishes Randall alongside her longtime partner (now wife), the visual artist Barbara Byers, whose boldly textured black-and-white photography accompanies the written work. Their brilliance, put together, results in a collection with all the power and beauty of a looming storm.

Margaret Randall's most recent collection of poems, Out of Violence Into Poetry, was written over these past few years when language itself was violated by a president who lied until each lie, repeated often enough, resembled a terrible truth in the public discourse. Reality, sanity, beauty: all bend and run the risk of breaking when distorted beyond recognition. These poems consciously restore language to its natural habitat. They deal with history, memory, loss, life, death and promise. They address love and aging. They become a welcome refuge at a time of uncertainty and take us on disparate journeys that often have surprising twists. There is humor as well as rage. We cannot leave it to the politicians alone to give words their meaning back. That is the job of poets, and this book does that job well. Randall is the author of nearly 200 books, spanning more than six decades. Out of Violence into Poetry may well be her finest collection of poetry to date.

Margaret Randall, the author, editor, and translator of nearly 200 books, turns her mind to the process of thinking - the purpose of which is to engage in the act of curiosity, inquiry, and examination. What results is an intimate, keen, and far-ranging collection of exploration from one of the great minds of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These thirty-one pieces range from current political events to the history of communication, from deciphering the Maya code to a childhood admiration of Elizabeth Taylor, from Alan Turing to the New York City subway maps. And each one concerns itself more with the act of thinking than reaching conclusions, engaging readers with their own ability to think.