No matter how you were touched by the events of September 11, 2001, that moment continues to resonate. Crossing the Rift: North Carolina Poets on 911 & Its Aftermath illuminates not only what happened that day, but what continues to challenge us twenty years later: Islamophobia, the vilification of refugees and asylum-seekers, nationalism, supercharged military budgets, and rises in virulent racism and domestic terrorism. Edited by former North Carolina poet laureate Joseph Bathanti and 911 family member and former literature and theater director for the North Carolina Arts Council David Potorti, Crossing the Rift takes head-on what Carolyn Forche calls “the poetry of witness” and its advocacy “for a shared sense of humanity and collective resistance.”