Revolt/Compassion

Consciously cra-fted, precise in their diction, and allusive in their references, the six plays comprising Revolt/Compassion ask for the reader's collaboration. Readers are not simple receivers of pre-determined or encoded meanings; rather, they must find their way in, are encouraged to change perspective, and participate in the interpretation of the text ... Their poetry -- the considered arrangement of the words, the shape of the text on the page, the accretion of meaning across the play, its solicitation of the reader's increased awareness -- activates the senses without necessarily dictating where they should take me or what I should make of them. At the same time, the ideas unfolded require a different vantage, a theoretical engagement. How can we locate ourselves in history? Where do art and politics intersect? What can words convey? How does social change come about? What part of memory and ideology is imagination? Revolt and compassion -- are these stances in contradiction with each other, or a contradiction with which to begin?

--From the introduction by Dr. Erin Hurley, McGill University

Frightening in its honesty, timely in its observations... Michael Springate's unflinching picture of Western imperialism will leave you breathless.

--Charles R. Lawson, Prof. Emer. at American University (on The Beautiful West and the Beloved of God ).

Springate promotes the thought-provoking idea that actual freedom is found in the absence of language: in silence.

--Canadian Literature A Quarterly Criticism and Review