Val Stevenson and Todd Swift have put together a book of peace poems, with contributions by "over 100 of the world's leading, mid-career and emerging poets who work in the English language." It's available for free as a PDF file that can be printed and folded into a chapbook.
The poems are, of course, pointed. The question for me is: Do I learn from them? Do they open my eyes, either intellectually or emotionally? And do they escape the pitfall of anti-war poetry of over-simplifying in unhelpful ways? For example, "Are there children" by Robert Priest begins:
are there children somewhere
waiting for wounds
eager for the hiss of napalm
in their flesh —
It ends:
does each man in his own way
plot a pogrom for the species
or are we all, always misled
to war
This appeal to the broadest impulses ("species," "all," "always") leaves out the third possibility: Sometimes wars are justified for particular reasons. And since the difficulty of war is always (talk about generalizations!) the disparity between its high aims and the "hiss of napalm" in the flesh of this one child, concluding by escaping into the general is exactly the sort of evasive maneuver the first part of the poem would have us avoid. Or, as Sampurna Chattarjli writes in "Easy"
The death-dealers deserved to die, you say.
Death is easy to pronounce.
It's the smell of burning children that's hard.
But is this just sentimentalism? After all, the inevitable death of children is part of a war that is supposedly being fought to prevent much larger evils. Still, the particularities cannot be forgotten, and poetry is one good way to remember them.
Many of the poems dispute the justification of this war, of course. For example, in "Regime change begins at home," Sue Littleton writes about shooting fish in a barrel, except the fish are all stacked up, helpless. The zinger is in the last verse:
The barrel holds no water...
but somewhere in its depths
there is the dark, iridescent sheen
of oil.
Aolfe Mannix allows himself ambiguity in "Taking Sides," which begins:
There will be another war,
many people will be killed,
and I will be expected to have an opinion.
But what can you say about a man
who'd rather let thousands of children die
than give them access to medical vaccines...
and ends:
Talk about a rock and a hard place.
The fundamental difference is questionable.
Neither Jesus nor Mohammed
would have allowed themselves
to be pushed into this kind of choice.
Sounds right. But why would Jesus and Mohammed escape the choice? Because they'd see immediately who to side with? Or because they would have seen the futility of sides? But, the first part of the poem tells us that sides aren't futile, for Saddam is an evil-doer. What is it that Jesus and Mohammed would have done that we have failed to do? I want one more line...or maybe one more poem. Or maybe this is where I'm supposed to do some thinking. (The irony to me is that both Christianity and Islam believe their religions are universal whereas the unmentioned Abraham founded a religion based on a tribal revelation.)
Article comments
1 - mike
Thanks for the tip; I'll check it out. Even though (or maybe because) I'm anti-war, I would normally never give something like this a second look. I agree with John Reed and Katha Pollitt, among others, that politics and poetry don't mix; the very phrase "peace poets" makes me cringe. Which is also, by the way, why conservatives are right to argue against poet laureates of New Jersey and direct governmemt subsidy of writers. They're prescriptions for pabulum, and worse.
2 - murphy
Thanks for bringing this anthology to my attention, and for all your comments.
Poetry has been trying to find a more mass market lately. Current events poetry might be another stab in that direction. Why not, after all? But I imagine that losing oneself in the poetic moment is made the more challenging by tying the moment to a very loaded political moment.
3 - Cheryl
The power of war
is powerless to all
In the end who has this power?
Define your power
and why would you want it?
Love is all that can conquer
Innocence is a kind of peace
This is where I want to be
with love, with innocence, with peace.
4 - Eric Olsen
I hope you find it and keep it - unfortunately SOMEONE has to deal with those who would take peace away from others unjustly. They won't go away of their own accord.
5 - Glaysher, Frederick
My response: http://www.fglaysher.com/NYTpr.htm
In predictable fashion The New York Times Book Review and much
of the media have chosen to support the more radical and supposedly
"enlightened" viewpoint on the tiff with The White House and Laura Bush.
A more misguided and wrong-headed response could
not exist. It's so fraught with cliches I hardly know where to start.
In general, it's a pity that Sam Hamill, and others who think like
him, demonstrate once again that poetry, as defined by them
at least, indeed doesn't matter, so complete is their inability
to think seriously about the threat represented by Saddam Hussein
and his weapons of mass destruction. Their ridiculous pose of mounting
the barricades is really quite contemptible. It is clear that the crowd
alluded to by Mr. Hamill summons poetry to their own radical
distortions and agendas, achieving only a further marginalization
of an art that has all too often, among some, lost allegiance to
the civilizing values of peace, which require defense never more so
than now.
Far from "the conscience of our culture," such poets have
no sense of history and the deep obligations of our country, to
ourselves and to the world, which the burden of power lays
upon us at this juncture. President Bush is right to call the United
Nations to live up to its founding Charter, to be a common refuge
of defense, "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,"
not merely consultation, reduced to babel. At this time of national
and international crisis, poets who betray their nation, art, and
humanity merit no audience at The White House.
For a different view of the issues involved, I invite your readers
to consider my essay "The Victory of World Governance":
www.fglaysher.com/WorldGov.htm
Frederick Glaysher
www.fglaysher.com
Earthrise Press
6 - mike
Poets who oppose the war are "betraying their nation"? Dude, that's drinking the Kool-Aid. Mostly they are guilty of writing bad poetry: Nothing stinks like political verse, and some of this stuff is truly wretched, like Amateur Poetry Night at Barnes and Noble.
You seem to be in a bit of an ideological straitjacket yourself: The future Poet Laureate of the Bagdhad Occupied Zone? Perhaps an oil tanker in your name?
7 - charlie vermont
Dear 100 poets against the war,
Think of the statues of the Buddha in Afghanistan.
They were there for thousands of years. They had
nothing to do with the United States or with Israel. Yet they were destroyed by the Taliban.
The ideology that fostered that act is rampaging
through the Islamic world. If undetered, that
ideology coupled with oil wealth will eventually
undermind the freedom the poets enjoy. It was not
the poets who defeated the NAZIS nor the Communists, it was military power,and the power
of ideas in part inspired by poets. Had Shakespeare been German would we have ever had
Hitler?
Knee jerk opposition is easy. Solutions to the
vehement problems of the world much harder. If
a disaster of enormous capacity should befall
this nation(as a result of a terroristic attack)
will the poets and can the poets fix it?
Yours in the spaces between truths
Charlie Vermont MD
8 - mike
do you smoke crack? because that diatribe made absolutely no fucking sense. The Taliban destroyed the Buddhas, therefore we have to destroy Saddam so we don't end with rampaging shieks through Bel Air like semitic Beverly Hillbillies, which would never have been a possibility if only the Arabs had produced their own Shakespeare, which el Al Bard would have compelled them to build powerful militaries to hunt down Islamic fundamentalists? Is that, like, basically it? it's no wonder the rest of the world isn't buying our Iraq war line. they don't even understand it!
9 - Frederick Glaysher
Mike,
I don't believe your comments address the seriousness of the situation facing our country and the world.
For a different view of the issues involved, I invite your readers
to consider my essay "The Victory of World Governance":
www.fglaysher.com/WorldGov.htm
Frederick Glaysher
www.fglaysher.com
10 - David Plumb
Perhaps Stephen Dobyns best addresses the advocates of Iraqi war (which isn't) in his poem, "Sword"
"You alone are the weapon you are trying to put down."
David Plumb