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About the Author
Anne Montgomery voluntarily served over three years in prison for her antinuclear activities, and her life story is truly a remarkable journey of faith. The daughter of an admiral whose activities as a warrior in many ways inspired hers as a pacifist, she joined the Religious of the Sacred Heart (RSCJ) at 22. Teaching at the Street Academy of Albany, she experienced the challenges faced by the poor and people of color. In 1975, after training to educate children with learning disabilities, she returned to New York City to work with school dropouts in East Harlem. It was during this time that she also became involved with the Catholic Worker. She became more involved with peacemaking efforts, including the newly formed Kairos peace community, of which she remained a vital core member.
In 1980 Montgomery made history when she participated in the first Plowshares action known as the Plowshares Eight. This unprecedented peace witness at the General Electric plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons marked the beginning of a new series of actions in which nonviolent resisters sought to enact the biblical prophecy of beating swords into plowshares. They would enter weapons facilities and military bases, and – using hammers, blood and other symbols – carry out a direct act of disarmament. There have been over 95 such actions to date. Montgomery went on to do seven other plowshares actions, the last of which – the Disarm Now Plowshares – took place in 2009 when she was 83. Montgomery’s commitment to standing with and for the victims led her to many war-torn areas. In January 1991 she was part of the Gulf Peace Team Camp on the Iraq/Saudi border calling upon the US not to bomb Iraq. She later became a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), serving in Iraq, the Balkans, the West Bank, and Hebron. Following the 2010 Disarm Now plowshares trial conviction, for which she served two months in federal prison and was placed on house arrest, Montgomery lived with her community in Redwood City, CA.
She died on August 27, 2012, at the age of 85 at her RSCJ Oakwood community in Atherton, California.
ARISE AND WITNESS: Poems by Anne Montgomery, RSCJ, About Faith, Prison, War Zones and Nonviolent Resistance
Arthur Laffin and Carole Sargent, eds.New Academia Publishing/SCARITH, 2024
116 pages
ISBN 979-8-9900542-4-0 paperback
See an excerpt from the book.
For BULK ORDERS, order directly from New Academia Publishing.
Queries: orders@newacademia.com
About the Author
Anne Montgomery voluntarily served over three years in prison for her antinuclear activities, and her life story is truly a remarkable journey of faith. The daughter of an admiral whose activities as a warrior in many ways inspired hers as a pacifist, she joined the Religious of the Sacred Heart (RSCJ) at 22. Teaching at the Street Academy of Albany, she experienced the challenges faced by the poor and people of color. In 1975, after training to educate children with learning disabilities, she returned to New York City to work with school dropouts in East Harlem. It was during this time that she also became involved with the Catholic Worker. She became more involved with peacemaking efforts, including the newly formed Kairos peace community, of which she remained a vital core member.
In 1980 Montgomery made history when she participated in the first Plowshares action known as the Plowshares Eight. This unprecedented peace witness at the General Electric plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons marked the beginning of a new series of actions in which nonviolent resisters sought to enact the biblical prophecy of beating swords into plowshares. They would enter weapons facilities and military bases, and – using hammers, blood and other symbols – carry out a direct act of disarmament. There have been over 95 such actions to date. Montgomery went on to do seven other plowshares actions, the last of which – the Disarm Now Plowshares – took place in 2009 when she was 83. Montgomery’s commitment to standing with and for the victims led her to many war-torn areas. In January 1991 she was part of the Gulf Peace Team Camp on the Iraq/Saudi border calling upon the US not to bomb Iraq. She later became a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), serving in Iraq, the Balkans, the West Bank, and Hebron. Following the 2010 Disarm Now plowshares trial conviction, for which she served two months in federal prison and was placed on house arrest, Montgomery lived with her community in Redwood City, CA.
She died on August 27, 2012, at the age of 85 at her RSCJ Oakwood community in Atherton, California.
ARISE AND WITNESS: Poems by Anne Montgomery, RSCJ, About Faith, Prison, War Zones and Nonviolent Resistance
Sr. Anne Montgomery’s poems are both a powerful spiritual anchor and a source of inspiration for all who seek to be a radical witness of truth and hope.
Sr. Anne Montgomery was a nonviolent witness in war zones in the Holy Land and Iraq, and endured years of imprisonment due to her involvement in Plowshares actions. Her poems are rooted in her love for accompanying the marginalized, borne out of her love for scripture and her experience of religious life and community. These poems provide unique and rich biblical insights into what it means to be human and a faithful follower of Jesus. This volume serves as both a powerful spiritual anchor and a source of inspiration for all who seek to be a radical witness of truth and hope, especially at the critical moment of history. Drawing on her experience as a religious, teacher and peacemaker, Anne’s poetry offers powerful scriptural insights that can sustain people’s hope.
Praise
“This posthumous collection of poems by activist Anne Montgomery illuminates the heart of a woman who gave her every moment in service to impede ugliness, and to do God’s work.
These poems not only tell stories but raise the reader’s consciousness to find what is possible to think and feel beyond one’s own well-being. These works are not sentences of hope strung together, they are real poems with image, idea, feeling and intuition. They are poems of rejuvenation so desperately needed in this cynical time. ‘To drink the wine of wonder’ Montgomery says. And then she demonstrates it with her thoughts.
‘Poetry of contemplation’ does not need to be sonorous. Montgomery’s is alive, animated on the page in forms that take an energetic esthetic. She uses experimental line breaks and juxtapositions, but her meanings are always steady and clear. Most of all, Anne Montgomery gives ‘a name to the nameless.’ She speaks for the beggar, the prostitute, the war-torn—‘…the child who sees with one eye/ or not at all/who walks with one leg/or never again…’
In death, this poet continues to give light.”
―Grace Cavalieri, Maryland Poet Laureate