In the Hour of Awakening

by Joanne Monte

In the Hour of Awakening, Joanne Monte brings her advocacy for social justice and human rights issues to light in many of her award-winning poems, ranging in themes of war, genocide, and crimes against humanity. These human rights abuses and horrors, suffered, and told to her, by members of her own family, are just as relevant today. What we discover in reading these poems is how the past can connect us to the present, how it can give us a glimpse into the future so that we can gain an understanding of our common humanity and our world.

Early Praise

We opted instead for light cries out Joanne Monte In the Hour of Awakening, her latest collection of poems that explores our long history of human rights abuses and suffering. Yet rather than focusing on the pain of humankinds’ often shameful past, she is continually searching for the smallest glimmer of light in the dust-filled darkness that often covers our world. There’s a keen sense of urgency in Monte’s words—treat yourself and open the pages to this glittering new collection of poems and join her as she listens for the singing on the other side of the wall. You won’t be disappointed.

—JOHN BARGOWSKI, author of American Chestnut

Joanne Monte reveals again, her powerful poetic skill to make readers feel for those caught in the chaos of war. Often it’s women, the mothers, who must scrape together a life for their children from sparse resources in a world made horrific by the insanity of wartime violence. She writes: At first,/ the people had been given baskets of gold,/ sweet melons, and peaches in wine—told that the wall/ will keep out the unwanted, … And many, believing it to be true,/ danced in their imagined autonomy, but only/ until they heard singing on the other side of the wall. How truly Monte portrays our common humanity, our hope for joyous singing. What we envy is the happiness in others that bloody war cannot win. She is a soulful poet who understands well our struggle to gain a world of peace in which our spirit can thrive. She’s a poet of longed for tranquility who understands well our common humanity across all borders. She knows that without nurturing sustenance, there can be no triumphant placidity. And, without peace, there can be no provisions for life. This profound realization composes In the Hour of Awakening.

—DANIELA GIOSEFFI, poet, critic, American Book Award winning author

 

About the Author

Joanne Monte was born and raised in New Jersey. Many of her poems have appeared in literary journals such as Poet Lore, The Washington Square Review, The Red Cedar Review, ellipsis…literature and art, Thirteen Bridges Review, Marrow Magazine, Lucky Lizard Journal and Poetry Super Highway, among others.

Joanne’s first poetry book, The Blue Light of Dawn, received The Bordighera Poetry Prize, sponsored by The Sonia Raiziss-Giop Charitable Foundation, and was published by Bordighera Press in 2013. She is also the author of The Day to Eternity (Word Association Publishers, 2012), a novel set during the Korean War, which was inspired by her father and uncles who had fought in the conflict.

In addition to receiving a Pushcart nomination, she is the recipient of  the New Jersey State Council on the Arts fellowship. Her other awards include Sixfold Poetry Prize, The Jack Grapes Poetry Award, Palette Poetry Award, Princemere Poetry Award, New Millennium Writings Award, Sheila-Na-Gig Poetry Award, Etched Onyx Magazine Award, and the Writer’s Digest Award.

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