Cover of Wild Poppies CD

This CD is a gathering of poets and musicians honoring Sister poet and former political prisoner Marilyn Buck, who passed away shortly after being released from more than 20 years in US prisons for her anti-imperialist politics and actions. In the eyes of the government, Marilyn was an enemy of the state, despised for her role in freeing Black Liberation leader Assata Shakur, hated for her willingness to risk her life and freedom for a world imaginable only to a revolutionary—or a poet.

Yet for the poets who rushed to lend their voices and their words to this collection, Marilyn is someone very different—a woman who lives for transformation. Through her political activism and writing, she creates the possibility of a world of social justice and peace. Through her approach to prison, she transforms the repression and censorship of imprisonment and, in the process, becomes a poet.

The Poets:

Reading Marilyn’s poems and their own are: Amiri Baraka, carolyn baxter/Nottiehead Bosco, Dennis Brutus, Aya De Leon, Fanny Howe, Uchechi Kalu, Elana Levy, Genny Lim, devorah major, Sara Menefee, Kiilu Nyasha, Maria Poblet, Presente!, Carlos Quiles, Samsara, Sonia Sanchez, Staajabu, Jean Stewart, Piri Thomas, Kwame Ture/Stokely Carmichael, Nellie Wong, Merle Woo, and Mitsuye Yamada.

The Musicians:

Framing the poetry is music contributed by India Cooke, Eugenio Maldonado “El Viejo Mago,” Fred Ho & the Brooklyn Saxophone Quartet, Copper Wimmin, Idris Ackamoor, and the musicians and activists of Shame the Devil.

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