What Does the Word Freedom Mean?

About the Book

Today, millions of people from around the world are questioning the basic values we were raised with. This is a book of 48 poems that attempt to connect our past with contemporary reality. Looking at the world as we know it today, these poems question the definitions of words we routinely use. Some of these words are freedom, what it means to be normal, a success, legal, legitimate, or what the words status quo, value, or civilization mean. Some of these poems look at history from the viewpoint of historical biographies. Those biographies are about the lives of Spartacus, Toussaint Louverture, Tecumseh, Geronimo, Frederick Douglass, Antonio Maceo, Eugene Debs, Mother Jones, Celia Sanchez, Ernesto Che Guevara, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Celia Sanchez, Malcolm X, Ida Wells, and Frantz Fanon. There are also poems about how women are central to the liberation of humanity, as well as a few sports stories. By looking at our reality from this perspective, these poems imagine how the future might be profoundly better than the reality we are living with today.

About the Author

Steve Halpern has been an auto worker, a housekeeper, and presently works as a school bus driver. He has been active in the movements protesting the wars against Vietnam and Palestinians, as well as support for women’s rights and Black Lives Matter. Presently he is a member of the Teamsters Union.