In Bending Our Ear Downward - Paperback

by Neil Anderson (Author)

This collection of poems is the result of a joint project between myself (Horticultural Science Professor, University of Minnesota, USA) and Lynn Silverman (Photography Professor, Maryland Institute College of Art, USA) while we were in the Czech Republic as J. William Fulbright Scholars. Together with my late husband, Mark Gilquist (Mathematics Professor, Anoka-Hennepin School District, MN USA), we explored a number of Jewish cemeteries (zidovský hřbitov) around Bohemia and Moravia as an alternative way to experience the Holocaust's impacts. I recorded plants which thrived in these abandoned oases. After visits to 7 zidovský hřbitov, I wrote poems to encapsulate their horticultural history, destructive past, and modern-day desecration. On 18 May 2016, during our "Still...Life" exhibition at the Weisman Art Museum (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN USA), I read these 7 poems and presented history and photographs to provide additional context. This, in its entirety, is what is contained in this monograph.