From Waco to Columbine, from Oklahoma City to New York City, from domestic abuse and drive-by shootings to religious fanaticism and acts of terrorism, the poems in this collection are for those who have perished and those who have survived. More than 140 poems by 120 poets focus, in the editors' words, on ""the violence in the news, the violence in our schools, the violence in our homes, as well as the violence in our own minds"". The poets gathered here articulate terror and suffering but also present images of hope and redemption; they write of individual menaces and individual victims and the melding of the two that potentially exists in everyone. By transforming horrifying details into larger truths, they create a poetry of witness, of survival, and of remembrance.