A. L. Butcher, Roman Nyle, Charles Yallowitz
Vickie Johnstone, Andrew P. Weston,
Rebecca Miller, Michael H. Hanson, Victoria Zigler, Joe Bonadonna, Richard Groller
Rhavensfyre, Anthea Sharp, Marta Moran Bishop, Colene Allen, J.C. Fields, Diana. L. Wicker, Inge - Lise Goss, Sean Poage
and Rebecca Lacy (multiple contributions by several)
The Stories and poetry are in a mix of US and UK English. The authors, editor, and cover designer have given their work and time for free to support those people fleeing war in Ukraine and its terrible consequences.
All royalties raised will go to humanitarian charities.
Stand Together is an important Anthology on its own... Even more so because all proceeds will go together humanitarian charities supporting the Ukraine War and its terrible consequences... My first post announcing the book can be found by checking the top location in the right column...
Reviewing an anthology is not the easiest thing to do... Simply because there are so many different stories, some of which a reader may not enjoy as much as others. Of course, I found this to be true. However, there were many poems and short stories that clearly warrant a "recommended" notice from me...
More importantly, I hope that each reader who sees this review will realize that the most important aspect of buying this book is to help those in Ukraine who continue to suffer under an autocrat who leads the country and has chosen to bring war for no other reason than his own quest for power...
Michael H. Hanson, speaks eloquently in just a few words in his "Wounds in Ukraine": The deepest wounds are in Ukraine, raw ruptures in both flesh and earth wrought by this age’s darkest bane granting young souls a dire breech birth...
Yet all of the mext words spoke to me, "Those Who Divide" by Charles E. Yallowitz, seemed more about here in America, and yet, it seems also, everywhere...
Those Who Divide
Charles E. Yallowitz
They are the ones with voice
Born with a power
To influence and talk
Expected to lead us
Into the better world
But they always fall
Swallowed by the sins
Pride and greed
Vanity and wrath
They are twisted
By society’s pull
Their voices turn to evil
Spouting hate and fear
Causing friends to fight
And families to splinter
Neighbors become enemies
They ignore their damage
Seeing only the faithful
The ones bowing at their feet
This praise is tainted
Grown from ignorance and terror
Yet it is not enough
Drunk of power
from their voice
They become the great dividers
Crying for action
And hurling childish insults
At those who don’t agree
Blindly building a void
A pit of animosity
Between our fellow man
Until the pit is all we see
And their putrid voices
Are all we hear.
***
Then Andrew Weston, worried as to whether we will reach the point of Indifference, in his poem Lodestone... while Vickie Johnstone cries out her words about Rape in Ukraine, the words so horrific yet we know they represent the truth of war...
And I begin to realize that this is not the kind of book that you would want to recommend as a must-read. And yet, it is that, just because it is so horrific in Truth... Surely we want to seek God... But God is not in War... God is Not in Hate and Violence... Yet the words continue... And we find God is with each who mourn of war...
Anthea Sharp moves to write a short story, entitling it The Tree of Fate and Wishes and begins with a young child waking from a dream of blood and ashes, only to learn that it had been decided...War...
Tell me, readers, how do you proceed to talk about children who face being in the midst of war? Then another starts talking about the smells of the results of war brought by one to another...knowing that smoke, blood and more will stay for days, for weeks and longer...
But not all stories are sad, a number look to older days of another time, a distant past, while another will find that there was once two brave girls who decided they were going to do something to stop the war...and of course, the happiness and joy that followed... But also...
Is War really just a part of normal living? I don't think so...and neither do the writers who have donated their words, their writing endeavors, to help those who are living within Ukraine under such dire circumstances... All of us must work together...Stand Together, to try to get past this chaotic period of hate and destruction...All we would need to do is Love Our Neighbors... Is that so hard to do? For surely there is something less than war, hatred and violence in our future... For this we cry out...
God Bring Us Through...
Gabby
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