The Palimpsest of Human Rights: Writings of Thoreau, Gandhi and King Adapted in Poetry

Limited resources, increasing populations, and unyielding political and religious systems have engendered conflicts around the world. As a consequence, commercial interests, established institutions, and government powers have threatened fundamental aspects of human rights. Writings of Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi, and Henry David Thoreau are here brought into a common format by paraphrasing the text into metered lines (iambic pentameter); the lines are arranged to create three-line stanzas in a single unified master document. The result is a long poem in which the successive lines are bound rhythmically but not always by meaning. In each stanza the first line is from Thoreau, the second line from Gandhi, and the third line from King. Jabez L. Van Cleef takes foundational texts from many oral traditions and religions and creates a common poetic format to preserve and disseminate them.