We have known each other for four years. Yet from that first meeting, a certain poetic energy pulsed between the three of us — an energy that combined with hope, and resulted in Birmingham's inaugural 100 Thousand Poets for Change event on September 29, 2016. Adrienne Rich said, "We must use what we have to invent what we desire." And so we did. And so we do. Since its inception, the Birmingham 100 Thousand Poets for Change harnessed the power of poetry to the need for local justice. We fundraise for a different community organization every year. This year, we are focusing our energy and passion on speaking for those who have been robbed of voice and platform. The national attack on undocumented bodies is not a foreign event but an intimate and local one. As detention centers expand to accommodate the present desire to punish those who seek a life on these shores, xenophobia becomes more deeply embedded and normalized as part of daily life. The institutionalization of oppression continues apace. Our efforts to raise money for Shut Down Etowah are not rooted in extremism but in the very simple belief that human rights do not depend on the possession of certain papers but on the possession of a hungry, hopeful, and fragile human body. Where politics fails, poetry steps in to speak. The following poets confront questions of justice, equality, personal and social change and the contradictions embedded in the hopes we maintain while living in an increasingly cruel society. In this publication the reader will find poetry that addresses the illegal detention of immigrants seeking refuge and the personal pain of mass incarceration, while being engaged by lyricism and rants, spoken word and new formalism. Long after the applause ends, the experience of a community in deep listening leaves a lasting impression of healing and enlightenment: The healing of being heard with unconditional attention by an audience of many ages, races, cultures and persuasions creates a healing, while the blossoming sensitivity to the experience of others expands our community's consciousness. Readers will find poems of resistance that confront our contradictions, our doubts and hopes, poems about gentrification, our state's racist history, sexual violence and inner courage. The editors believe in the power of poetry to create a community who coalesces in resistance and creates healing for its people. We commend all the poets and sponsors who put their bodies and words on the line for greater purpose. We are deeply grateful to all the local groups, organizations, and individuals who keep alive the power of poetry and justice. In the words of Audre Lorde: "…putting yourself on the line is like killing a piece of yourself, in the sense that you have to kill, end, destroy something familiar and dependable, so that something new can come, in ourselves, in our world. And that sense of writing at the edge, out of urgency, not because you choose it but because you have to, that sense of survival — that's what the poem is out of, as well as the pain… Once you live any piece of your vision it opens you to a constant onslaught. Of necessities, of horrors, but of wonders too, of possibilities." We turn our hearts to the horrors as we prepare our minds for the possibilities. Refusing the silence that becomes complicity, Ashley Jones, Laura Secord, and Alina Stefanescu

Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
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