All over the world, poets stand up for progressive change

DC's Walk of Shame Brings Silenced Voices to International Action

“What if we stand outside the embassies of some of those countries and read the silenced poets’ poems so they can be part of 100 Thousand Poets for Change too?”

The Poetry Walk of Shame was born. We chose three countries with egregious human rights records, from three parts of the world, whose embassies were within walking distance of one another. Sadly, this was not a difficult task. The embassies of Yemen and Burma are tucked into a leafy corner of DC called Kalorama, just northwest of Dupont Circle. And just downhill, on a stretch of Massachusetts Avenue known as Embassy Row, stands an unprepossessing row house, the embassy of Turkmenistan.

Read the full article here: http://www.fpif.org/articles/poets_stand_up

Video of exiled Burmese poet Kyi May Kaung (in photo) reading her poems at the Burmese embassy is here, courtesy of This Light: Sounds for Social Change.