Larry Jaffe

Larry Jaffe is an internationally known, award-winning author and poet. For his entire professional career, Jaffe has been using his art to promote human rights.

He was poet-in-residence at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage; featured in Chrysler’s Spirit in the Words poetry program; co-founder of Poets for Peace (now Poets without Borders); and helped spearhead the UN Dialogue among Civilizations through Poetry project, which spanned hundreds of cities globally.

Jaffe impacts audiences and readers with a rich emotional range, masterfully crafted, written from the heart and soul. His work has been translated into over a dozen languages.

Jaffe has read his work in the Japanese American Museum; the Hammer Museum; the Museum of Tolerance; the Jewish Museum; the Museum of Literature in Prague; and the Dylan Thomas Centre in Wales. He was the first poet honored with the Saint Hill Art Festival’s Lifetime of Creativity Award; is past Poet Laureate for Youth for Human Rights; and is Florida’s Beat Poet Laureate. His books include Unprotected Poetry; Anguish of the Blacksmith’s Forge; One Child Sold; In Plain View; 30 Aught 4; Sirens; and Man without Borders.

Jaffe’s recent activities include workshops and seminars on artists’ rights, human rights and human trafficking.

He spends much of his time with his wife Shelley at their Scone Age Bakery & Café in Dunedin, Florida, co-hosting the Great Coffee House Poetry Revival series with Alan Graham. Jaffe co-edits the Florida Bards poetry book series with James Paul Wagner.

A house built
of Human Rights
stands aflame

Philosophies assaulted
growing weapons
of prejudice

Buildings fall
like butterflies
in September

Armies held
hostage
proclaiming innocence

Presidents and dictators
take aim
and shoot their own

Worried politicians
shutter rights
in the name of security

Wings are shorn
angels
drop from the sky

From nowhere voices
whisper
neglected freedoms

A child chips
away at pretense
spouts natural law

The last man standing
cries out
says he is not alone

Citizens defend
30 rights
with vigilance

Freedom reborn
Renaissance of Human Rights

Where, after all, do Universal Rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. – Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

Human rights begins
with your heart
miraculously transforming
hate to love.

It begins
with your mind

inexplicably converting
fear to courage.

Human rights begins
with your fingers
astonishingly turning
violence into caresses.

It begins
with your family

evolving
ignorance into intelligence

It begins
in your neighborhood
ultimately challenging
prejudice with tolerance.

Human rights begins
wherever you are