Amy Jo Burns

In honor of Arab American Heritage Month in April, we are sharing books by Arab and Arab American authors that share their culture, history, and personal lives.

For National Poetry Month in April, we are sharing poetry collections and books about poetry by authors who have their own stories to tell. These poets delve into history, reimagine the present, examine poetry itself—from traditional poems many know and love to poems and voices that are new and original.

Cinderland exposes the real danger lay in covering the truth in order to prop up our notions of being a wholesome, safe place to live. The need to be “good” seems especially potent in small communities, likely due to a false nostalgic notion that small towns are quaint, protected, and silent. But silence does not a safe place make. Instead it ripens an environment toward sexual violence, and it also heightens the private aftershocks that are weathered for years to come.