Presentation of Fatal Force: Poetic Justice Anthology at Taller Puertorriqueño.
Introduction to the Fatal Force: Poetic Justice Anthology
The genesis of this anthology “Fatal Force; Poetic Justice” was born out of a poem written by the Puerto Rican poet Martin Espada on the murder of Eddie Irizarry, a young Puerto Rican man killed in Philadelphia by a police officer on August 14th, 2023. Espada’s poem titled “Officer Mark Dial, Who Shot Eddie Irizarry, Will Be Fired for Insubordination”, was based on a headline which appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on August 23, 2023. Outside of having the poem published by Moonstone Press and other literary publications, Martin wanted the poem to go a bit further and to mean something more substantial. Towards that end, Larry reached out to myself, and I proposed the anthology as a way to honor Martin’s wishes while creating a space for poets to address what is as evidenced by the poems included, a deeply personal and difficult subject matter. I also knew that I did not want to be the sole editor of the anthology, so I reached out to Ricardo Kearns, a journalist and poet whom I have known for decades who graciously agreed to co-edit this anthology with me.
Sadly, as happens too frequently in cases of police violence against civilians, the judge threw out Eddie Irizarry’s case siding with the defense despite a mountain of evidence including police body camera footage which contradicted police accounts of what happened, and which led to the officers suspension and eventual dismissal from the Police Department. The execution style murder of Eddie Irizarry is of course just one in a long litany of names of individual men, women, teens and children, murdered by police.
A primary purpose of poetry and its power is in naming. These poems do just that, giving voice to individuals, to families to communities and to difficult moments. The poems in this anthology are a testament to the impact that police brutality has had and continues to have on the lives of the poet as citizen, and on society at large. They are poems, full of anger, rage, despair, frustration, sadness, and hope. The poems in this anthology seek to make sense of the senseless, to bear witness, and to pay tribute to those lives lost, so it is no coincidence that the elegy, (that most beautiful of poetical forms) appears time and time again in these pages, it is how in poetry, since time immemorial, we poets have honored the lives, and the spirit of the dead, and give a small bit of comfort to the living.
In solidarity,
David Acosta and Ricardo Kearns.