War Bonds by Christina Lux
War Bonds is a book of poems about survival in the face of conflict, from Iraq and Afghanistan, to #BlackLivesMatter, the war in Ambazonia and Cameroon, and gang violence in California's Central Valley. The book jumps back in time 100 years to the archive of a Chicago pianist and painter, Edna Cookingham, who worked with the YMCA in France to entertain the troops at the end of WWI. Her letters, telegrams, diary, photographs, and war papers serve as source material for these poems. While Europe may have experienced demobilization and a peace process in 1919, the echoes of that conflict continue to be felt around the world, binding us still. The book explores how we move forward – bound together – after conflict, violence, terror, or mass trauma.
Christina Lux holds a Ph.D. in Romance Languages from the University of Oregon, a Certificate in Conflict Resolution from Cornell University, and Certificates in Conflict Analysis, Negotiation, and Mediating Violent Conflict from the United States Institute of Peace. She served as a short-term Cultural Envoy to Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo, where she led creative writing workshops with youth who had survived the civil war. Her poetry has appeared on National Public Radio, in the Houston Chronicle, and in textbooks by Oxford University Press, as well as in journals such as Women's Studies Quarterly and North Dakota Quarterly. Born in Pasadena, California, she lived in Planada, California for several years before moving to Texas, then Québec, followed by five years in Cameroon, returning to the U.S. for university studies. She is currently Managing Director of the Center for the Humanities at the University of California, Merced.