Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression.
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Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression. |
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 The Good Artists Were Usually on the Right Side by Samih al-Kasim |
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This essay is an except from a longer piece forthcoming from Weber: The Contemporary West that includes sample poems as well as further observations.
Poetry in an Age of War and Atrocityby Eleanor Wilner Toni Morrison, Nobel laureate novelist, once said of writing: “Make it political as hell. And make it irrevocably beautiful.” But how is it possible to do both of those things at once, and why must we try? Those are the questions I’d like to take up in this essay, speaking as a practicing poet writing in a time of public dismay. Though it is a dramatic commonplace, and an often overstated claim, to say that we are at a crossroads--nevertheless I am going to assert that we are, as writers, at a very particular one. Because once again we are at war, and, in the words of the critic Lionel Trilling, we stand at “the dark and bloody crossroads where literature and politics meet, “ and not at all by choice, but by circumstance. We cannot choose our history; we can only choose to ignore it--and silence, as the law says, gives consent. |
In late January 2003, in response to an invitation to a symposium by Laura Bush to celebrate "Poetry and the American Voice," Sam Hamill declined; a longtime pacifist, he could not in good faith visit the White House following the recent news of George W. Bush's plan for a unilateral "Shock and Awe" attack on Iraq. Instead, he asked about 50 fellow poets to "reconstitute a Poets Against the War movement like the one organized to speak out against the war in Vietnam...to speak up for the conscience of our country and lend your names to our petition against this war” by submitting poems of protest that he would send to the White House. When 1,500 poets responded within four days, this web site was created as a means of handling the enormous, unexpected response.
Since then, the "accidental groundswell" grew to include poets from around the world. There are presently more than 20,000 poems in this, the largest poetry anthology ever published. Poems from Poets Against War have been presented in person, by invitation, to several representatives of the U.S. Congress; many of them have since been introduced into the Congressional Record.
We need your help to make a powerful statement against war.
Poets Against war is a volunteer organization dependent upon the financial contributions of friends and members. Please help support our efforts.
Summer 2009 Torture & Murder as Policy The interrogation and detention regime implemented by the U.S. resulted in the deaths of over 100 detainees in U.S. custody -- at least. While some of those deaths were the result of "rogue" interrogators and agents, many were caused by the methods authorized at the highest levels of the Bush White House, including extreme stress positions, hypothermia, sleep deprivation and others. Aside from the fact that they cause immense pain, that's one reason we've always considered those tactics to be "torture" when used by others -- because they inflict serious harm, and can even kill people. Those arguing against investigations and prosecutions -- that we Look to the Future, not the Past -- are thus literally advocating that numerous people get away with murder. A Nation of Torturers? The single most significant event in shaping worldwide revulsion towards the violence of the Iranian government has been the video of the young Iranian woman bleeding to death, the so-called "Neda video." Torture and Obama's "Nation of Laws" Lakhdar Boumediene is an Algerian (and Bosnian citizen) who, while living in Bosnia and working for the International Red Crescent, was arrested by the Bosnian government (at the behest of the Bush administration) shortly after 9/11 on charges of plotting to blow up a U.S. and British embassy, but was then quickly cleared by Bosnian courts of any wrongdoing and ordered released. Cheney Debunked by Iraq Interrogator MATTHEW ALEXANDER Let me dissect former Vice President Dick Cheney's speech on National Security using this model and my interrogation skills. Afghan poets tackle scars of war By Dawood Azami A Deep Breath of Fresh Air: Morris Berman's BlogWhat Human Rights?President Obama's call for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay torture center encouaged many in the world of human rights to believe that this administration would bring about significant changes in U.S. policies dealking with terrorism. But now we learn that while Obama calls for the end of U.S. torture policies and adherence to the Army Field Manual, he will continue to let others do our torturing for us. Extreme rendition, anyone? Military tribunals rather than honest trial-by-court? Obama clearly plans to follow the Bush Doctrine as regards the human rights of suspects and he does so at the direct expense of our moral standing in the eyes of the world. For the story: |
Our team of volunteer editors have reviewed more than 20,000 poems. We can't showcase every poem but on this page you will find a monthly posting of poems or statements that have been suggested to us by poets and editors around the world.
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Senate to Investigate CIA's Actions Under Bush
Poets Against War are urged to demand that U.S. war criminals be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. As President Obama has clearly stated: "No one is above the law."
by Breyten Breytenbach
A delegation of writers had just returned from a short visit to the West Bank - Read the complete essay and poems
From "Silence for Gaza"
“. . .Gaza is far from its relatives and close to its enemies, because whenever Gaza explodes, it becomes an island and it never stops exploding. It scratched the enemy’s face, broke his dreams and stopped his satisfaction with time.
Because in Gaza time is something different.
Sinan Antoon remembers Mahmoud Darwish, who embodied – and transcended – the Palestinian cause.
Mahmoud Darwish did not enter the great void about which he wrote so eloquently exactly the way he had imagined. Alas, we do not get to choose the way we die – just as we do not have much say in where we are born; it is a matter of chance and coincidence. Darwish was well aware of such contingencies: in his last published poem, he wrote:
I am like you. . . I was named by coincidence
and belonged to a family by coincidence
and inherited its features and diseases
its defective arteries.
Read the tribute to Mahoud Darwish
Ibrahim Nasrallah's selected poems translated from the Arabic by Omnia Amin & Rick London is 