pg.1 Preface

This compilation of poems and songs shares one common theme, freedom. While freedom is the theme of each of these poems the kind of freedom each individual is writing or singing about varies in a number of different ways. Some of these pieces, like “The Battle Cry of Freedom” by George F. Root speak very literally about freedom from a physical oppressor, while others long for a more abstract and theoretical freedom. These more abstract poems allow the reader to put themselves in the poem and imagine it as it may apply to their own life situation. The poems in this anthology are arranged in an order designed to guide the reader through them starting with the most literal sense of freedom to the more abstract and undefined. The poems also come from very different time periods and places, although this contributes less to the order that they have been arranged in.