Before The Vote After

Poet Jane Yolen, author of over 350 books, and winner two years ago of one of New England Public Radio's Arts and Humanities Awards, has been active in progressive politics since her days as a Smith College undergrad standing on vigil lines for Hungarian freedom fighters. That led to her time as a delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention pledged to McGovern where she sat--as she likes to say, at Father Bob Drinan's right hand. These days her main political activity is to write poems about the glorious, the bad, and the truly ugly which she sends out every day to almost a thousand poetry subscribers. This past year her poems have been particularly political and when November 8 came and went. . .into a nose dive. . .she decided to put those poems together for others to read. For every 30 books sold, she plans to make a donation to various progressive groups, beginning with the ACLU in honor of Bill Newman who wrote the introduction to the book.