

Said Not Said
How should a poem respond to the fundamentally unacceptable dimensions of human experience? What good is a poem in the face of irremediable illness, the death of innocents, human predation? Why persist in searching for words and images that inevitably prove inadequate to experiences that seem beyond words, beyond imagining? These are the questions that reside at the core of SAID NOT SAID.
These poems break open the heart, so we can weep in compassion for all our lives. Fred Marchant teaches and awakens the soul.
Maxine Hong Kingston
There's a wonderfully wide, essential music here in the voice of Fred Marchant, a fluency of spirit both delicate and firm.
Naomi Shihab Nye
To my mind, what distinguishes Marchant’s work is his willingness to take a hard look at human suffering while maintaining his unflinching, delicate tone.
George Kalogeris

Poems
Below the Fold
someone in Benghazi with a hose in one hand
uses his free one to wipe down the corpse
water flows over the body and down
a tilted steel tray toward the drain
what washes off washes off