Colette Inez is probably one of the best poets I've ever read. She doesn't dwell too much on fancy analogies or metaphors to get her feelings and messages across to her readers. This book is also incredibly brave because she talks about her parents' illicit affair, her mother's abandonment, and her search for identity. Oh, each poem is so beautifully written. I must add that she is fantastic in person and a must-see. I just hope that she prints something new soon. You just can't get enough of her.

Debra Kang Dean is a poet whose grasp of form allows her poems to work simultaneously on the levels of mind and music. These poems embody immigrant experience with an uncommon grace as well as a fighting spirit. One of the poems, "Taproot" appears in "Best American Poetry 1999."

Martha McFerren is simply one of the best poets I know. Her poetry deals with themes of popular culture and the wacky juxtapositions contemporary life serves up as daily fare. A fascinating, multi-layered, often hilarious excursion down the great metaphorical U.S. highway...ride on.

As one of the poets featured in Will Work for Peace, one might expect me to be a bit biased, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Most poets work in a virtual vacuum, only tenuously connected to each other by the occasional workshop or shared membership in a 'poetry society'. When Brett Axel first approached me for a submission to an anthology he was considering, the names Marge Piercy, Lyn Lifshin, Moshe Bennaroch and so many others were abstractions to me as a fledgling poet. I knew these tremendous writers were 'out there' somewhere, beating down doors with their words and keeping a struggling artform alive. But to think that someday I would ever share a credit with these dynamic modern poets would be a pipe dream at best. It is through the sincere efforts of Brett Axel that many newer voices like mine have an extraordinary opportunity to appear with Pulitzer Prize winners and other poetic heavyweights. By way of an honest review, however, I will say this- not everything in this book will be to your particular liking. I myself came across some works that did not move me in the way the author may have intended. Some imagery can be raw and visceral, using shock value in place of craft at times. But to ignore those voices would be an even more shocking turn of events, so praise be to the editor for not sacrificing his vision to a senseless conformity. As Pete Seeger so aptly put it in his quote, trying to read all these poems at one time would be like trying 'to swallow Manhattan whole'. I say to you- buy this book, read this book, but understand that it's what you do after reading this book that will ultimately define who you could be. Poetry is alive and well, and lives in the blunt pages of Will Work for Peace.

Just amazing start to finish! I like the disregard for fame used in putting the book together. That great poems got in even if they were writtenby nobodys. Look at Roger Bonair-Agard's poem on page 74. Shortly after Will Work For Peace came out he won Slam Nationals, becoming Slam Champion of 1999, which will be getting him lots of offers. But Zeropanik Press didn't need to be told he was good by an award. They could tell by his writing! Good for them and good for all of us because Will Work For Peace is a literary milestone. It's a new standard for all future anthology editors to try to live up to. Thumbs up to Brett Axel and Thumbs up to Zeropanik Press for their guts and integrty.

Brett Axel visited my Church and I bought a copy of Will Work For Peace from him, not for poetry, but because I care about working for peace. I started reading through it thinking It'd just go on my shelf and that'd be the end of it, but the book grabbed me and kept me rivited. If I had known that poetry was this alive I'd have been into poetry. I've been reading some of the poems to my friends who also didn't think poetry was important and they are saying the same thing. Fantastic! There's no way to get through this book without having your old mindsets challenged. It's funny, powerful, sad, and uplifting. A book that deserves to be read by everyone. A book that really can make the world a better place!

I would just like to say that i recently got the oppurtunity to meet Mrs. Inez at a high school poetry competetion and she is every bit as graceful and enlightening as her poetry---

Colette Inez is one of the few poets who can transform her personal history so that it becomes as powerful as the stories we hand down from generation to generation. Sad and inspiring, Inez's central theme is her struggle to comprehend and imagine her parents, a scholar and a priest, who abandoned her to a Catholic orphanage in Brussels and eventually foster homes in the United States. As a survivor of abandonment and alcoholic abuse, Inez is especially sensitive to finding those small moments that keep us alive, that give us hope, that allow us to look at the worst of life and move beyond it. She writes of the passion of her parents; the austere life of orphans; the love she has for her own husband; the great artists who inspire her; and the nature of animals, angels, and trees. Those who admire poetry will find Inez a graceful writer who knows how to find just the right words and images to convey difficult personal history so that it never becomes sentimental, so that it gains its own mythic power. Those who have suffered abuse, no matter the source, will see Inez as a survivor of great courage.