Poets Against the War in Davis

The Davis Enterprise, our local paper, ran a story yesterday on the Davis Poets for Peace. The article is not unfortunately online, but it gives an extensive spot to my efforts to gather local poets and activists to protest the U.S. war on Iraq.

This grew out of the movement spearheaded by poet Sam Hamill, founder of Copper Canyon Press and a veteran activist from the 1960s, in response to Laura Bush’s cancellation of a symposium on American Poetry scheduled for February 15—on the grounds, according to her publicist, that she didn’t want poetry politicized (!). Since Langston Hughes was one of the three featured poets, along with Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, this is even more ironic. And here’s a Republican who reads.

Sam Hamill asked some of his friends to submit poetry against the war. The word spread. Within days there were 3,000 poems on Poets Against the War; within weeks, the number had grown to 13,000.

Poetry readings against the war were hastily organized and hundreds were held across North America on or around February 12. In Davis, thirty of us huddled outside the City Council Chambers under the covered walkway (it was raining hard) and read poems by ourselves or by others. Another two poetry readings were held at the 24-hour peace vigil that began on Thursday evening after the war started. Participants ranged from well-known local poets such as Maria Melendez to first-time poetry writers. Many of their poems can be found through the Poets Against the War site.

All this has been possible because of the online activist community exemplified by MoveOn.org, whose focused issues and reliance on word-of-keyboard dissemination have altered the way many Americans participate in the political process. The community has grown fast, and has turned global. Simply in terms of activism for poets, there are Poets for Peace, UK Poets Against the War (great headline: “Oxford Poets Blast US Air Base with Rhyming Couplets”), Poesa Salvaje, Potes Contre La Guerre (“parce que le mot ne peut pas stopper la guerre, mais peut l’empcher de se drper du bien” [“because the word cannot stop war, but it can prevent it from cloaking itself in good”]).

Poetry provides an outlet for some people who want to protest the war but are not willing to chain themselves to buildings in San Francisco. Voices of peace, humanity, anguish, fear, and general questioning are a fresh antidote to the bombastic howling, lies, and deceit emanating from Washington. Where, we all ask, are the weapons of mass destruction? And why, even if hundreds if not thousands of Iraqis take to the streets and wave to the American and British soldiers, did that make it legal for our government to invade?

Here’s a poem I wrote after being asked to calligraph the names of Iraqis who had been killed by bombing or by sanctions since 1991 to hang on the Davis peace tree, which stood for two weeks in the G Street Plaza following the outbreak of the war.