The Mourning Katrina National Writing Project helped survivors deal with the emotional trauma of their experience through writing poetry. This book was born out of human suffering and owes its existence to the cooperation and generosity of spirit of more than three hundred people who participated in the Project. The poems, or individual configurations of language, in Mourning Katrina: A Poetic Response to Tragedy recall for us certain associative powers of the human mind, our capacities for dealing with things as modern as existentialism and the absurd and things as ancient as religious beliefs and hope that healing shall eventually manifest itself.