Gutters & Alleyways: Perspectives on Poverty and Struggle

Gutters & Alleyways is a collection of poetry, prose and art from over 80 contributors who share personal, compelling, and often gritty work on the topic of economic inequality. Travel across America and around the world into these dark alleyways and humble homes. This anthology is the first of many from Lucid Moose Lit, a small press that engages the literary arts with social justice issues. Impact 1. First and foremost, the goal of the book was to simply hold space for marginalized perspectives to emerge, and to grant them dignity and respect. 2. Second, we wanted to open up the lens of poverty and ask what this really means - who is in poverty? What do they look like? Could it be me or you? We wanted to minimize Othering, maximize empathy, and gather a wide range of viewpoints (which we are happy to say, we think we did). 3. Third, we hope that sharing these important perspectives will spark conversation about the pressing issues around us, and serve to shed light on the diverse realities of people living below the poverty line. 4. Then, we hope the conversations may inspire action. From the National Center for Law and Economic Justice: As of 2013, one out of seven people in the USA are living in poverty. In 2012, 46.5 million people were living in poverty in the United States-the largest number in the 54 years the Census has measured poverty. Almost one out of sixteen people in the USA are living in deep poverty. Racial and ethnic minorities, women, children, and families headed by single women are particularly vulnerable to poverty and deep poverty. The aim of Lucid Moose Lit is to be an activist press with a clear goal: improve the state of the world for humans, animals, and ecosystems by welcoming multiple perspectives on controversial topics. We aim to be inclusionary by bringing different views together in productive conversation.