The History That Peace Made - Part 4

"It looks like poets will always have their work cut out for them."

Wislawa Szymborska, I Don't Know: The 1996 Noble Lecture.

Despite mainstream media's ongoing failure to acknowledge the increasingly voluminous voices of opposition to military action, those calling for peace refused to waiver in their determination to be heard. Possibly the perfect complement to the protests beginning to take place on the streets were those beginning to take place on the page as, internationally, poets and writers dedicated their pens and keyboards to the peace movement. Those tuning in to the broadcast images of mainstream media were treated to a play by play drama of the United States' attempt to justify its proposed campaign in Iraq, computer-generated scenarios of what the war would be like, and much chest-beating over the military's technological advances since the first Gulf War in 1991. Those tuning in to the words and thoughts of the poets received very different kinds of reports with very different kinds of scenarios.

Among the most startling bulletins to issue out of the camp of the poets in early January was one stating that they had been invited by First Lady Laura Bush to participate on February 12 in a program called Poetry And The American Voice at the White House. It was not, however, a presentation of poetry intended to showcase the energy of unchained truth and liberated genius that can be found in coffee houses across the country on virtually any night of the week. It was, rather, one proposed to pay tribute to the works of several honored masters of the craft: Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, and Walt Whitman.

One of the poets invited to participate in the event was Sam Hamill, founding editor of Canyon Press and a former marine. Hamill decided that because still-living poets had much more to lose during a time of war than their peacefully resting ancestors, it was their still-living voices that should be heard at the White House. Accordingly, Hamill issued a call via the Internet for poets to submit work for an anthology to be entitled Poets Against the War and presented to the First Lady on February 12. Indeed, realizing that American poetry - including that of Hughes, Dickinson, and Whitman - overflows with voices that challenge the extremes of political violence, the White House organizers of Poetry And The American Voice promptly cancelled the scheduled event. In doing so, they also cancelled an extraordinary opportunity to demonstrate democracy's brilliant capacity to accommodate contrasting points of view at the same time that it allows citizens to exercise the spirit of democratic unity.

The cancellation of Poetry And The American Voice essentially began the launch sequence for one of the most powerful literary movements in modern history and increased the volume of the protests against war in Iraq. Whereas Sam Hamill had already issued one call for poetry challenging the war regime, another came from editor Todd Swift in Paris on January 20. Only seven days later, Swift and publisher Val Stevenson produced an e-book titled 100 Poets Against The War, making it one of the fastest assembled and published books in history. They also made it readily available as a free download at www.nthposition.com and several other websites. Just as the tools of war had made remarkable advances over the previous twenty years, so had those of peace. The e-book further went through a succession of rapid editions and would later circulate in printed form at peace campaigns around the globe.

Despite the cancellation of the Poetry and the American Voice, numerous poets heeded Hamill's call to gather outside the iron gates of the White House on February 12 for A Day of Poetry Against the War. Alongside works by the venerable ancestors Hughes, Dickinson, and Whitman, living poets recited their own and set the stage for a series of Days and Nights of Poetry Against the War that would be observed in virtually every state and some 160 countries. Hamill would go on to establish the Poets Against the War website at www.poetsagainstthewar.og and eventually amass more than 13,000 poems in the site's archives. Featured among writings by more than 9,000 poets were works by such renowned figures as Rita Dove, Robert Bly, Yusef Komunyakaa, Sandra Cisneros, and Robert Aiken, who would also be featured in the printed book version of Poets Against the War. Moreover, Poets Against the War soon found itself in the company of a string of similar literary platoons, including United Kingdom Poets Against the War, Poetes Contre la Guerra, Dialogue Through Poetry, Poets for Peace, and dozens more.

Significantly, whereas the White House declined to acknowledge the informed sensibilities of America's poets, the United Nations assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, would later (April 30, 2003) graciously accept a gift of 13,000 poems from Poets Against the War. The poems were presented on a gift-wrapped zipdisk by Pamela S. Meidell and Janet Bloomfield of the environmental organization known as the Atomic Mirror in the Palais des Nations, where 106 delegates of nations committed to the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty gathered for a Non Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee meeting. In a scene that could have been taken from the life of the Persian mystic Jallaludin Rumi, this gift of poetry sparked spontaneous recitals from those present and had the curious effect of creating bonds as opposed to severing them.

True to their prophetic dispositions, the poets mostly sidestepped the drama of politicians seeking official sanction for war and stared open-eyed at the reality already before them. The sword of vengeance was not so much poised to strike as it was already in full deadly flight, cleaving sisters from their brothers, fathers from their daughters, and lovers from their beloved. In her "Letter To Hayden Caruth," poet Marilyn Hacker observed with bleak bone-dry detachment that, "The world is howling/ bleeding and dying in banner headlines./ No hope from youthful pacifists, elderly/ anarchists; no solutions from diplomats."

Diplomats, it would seem, were the wrong ones from which to expect solutions relevant to the lives of everyday citizens, just as mainstream media was the wrong source from which to expect a fully rounded appraisal of United States' citizens response to war in Iraq. Instead of updates on how the war might be fought - as if anyone truly doubted which of the involved countries possessed the stronger military might - poet Ken Waldman announced in 100 Poets Against the War that "Where there's war, there's anti-war/ of writers writing, readers reading, veterans recalling what they served for."

The "anti-war," as it were, was not one fought with robot airplanes, state of the art chemical warfare ensemble, or apache helicopters dropping mega-bombs on school children and threatening to disembowel the earth once and for all. It was fought with, surpassing the use of signs or songs or slogans, an intense faith in the belief that peace was superior in power to violence and that it was every bit as possible as it was relevant and essential. It was also, like war, a tactic susceptible to effective persistent strategy rather than a passive meditation on hopelessness. In the words of poet Mary Oliver, it was necessary for one to "Wage peace... wage peace with your listening: Hearing sirens, pray loud."

Joining the hue and cry of the poets' visionary outrage against looming war was a collective of minds and spirits unlike any in history previously united against a proposed war. Scientists, novelists, clergymen, Nobel Laureates, musicians, actors, educators, and statesmen, like an international think tank of the highest caliber, all volunteered their very informed insights on the conflict at hand. Celebrated novelist and former British foreign serviceman John le Carre' charged that, "the American public is not merely being misled. It is being browbeaten and kept in a state of ignorance and fear." le Carre', known for works that explore the more sinister operations of government pit against the more sincere motivations of the human spirit may have spoken a bit more cynically than most but he was far from alone in his assessment. Long-time social critic Noam Chomsky was one of many who voiced beliefs very similar to Le Carre's.

Many of those witnessing the growing chaos, however, were more concerned with the legacy being established than they were with the prospects of a war that most felt would, even at its worst, prove short-lived. Those destined to lose their lives in the war took no comfort whatsoever in the Department of Defense's promise that casualties would be "minimal." And those staring eagerly at the larger picture were prone to multiplying the minimal casualties of the Iraq war by the minimal casualties of whatever wars were most certainly to follow and concluding that the word minimal was painfully inapplicable to the situation before them. As Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia saw it, speaking before the United States Senate on February 12, "This nation is about to embark upon the first test of a revolutionary doctrine applied in an extraordinary way at an unfortunate time. The doctrine of preemption - the idea that the United States or any other nation can legitimately attack a nation that is not imminently threatening but may be threatening in the future - is a radical new twist on the traditional idea of self-defense. It appears to be a contravention of international law and the UN Charter. And it is being tested at a time of worldwide terrorism, making many countries around the globe wonder if they will soon be on our - or some other nation's - hit list."

Along with the voices of the poets in the United States, that of Kofi A. Annan, secretary general of the United Nations, was also patronizingly dismissed as insignificant. Annan's voice joined on the sidelines that of former South African President Nelson Mandela, Nobel Laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu, and virtually every other black person of any political prominence or influence expressing dissent. Such dismissal did not prevent Annan from further pointing out, as Senator Robert Byrd had, the greater threat of a war with Iraq. "We worry," said Annan, "about the broader, longer-term implications that this war might have for peace and security in the region, and throughout the world." Presumably, it also worried Annan that few seemed to have taken very seriously a declaration made by the UN Assembly proclaiming the years 2001 through 2010, the first decade of the twenty-first century, as the Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World. In fact, the decade was rapidly on its way to becoming for children - both inside and outside officially declared war zones - one of the most cruel and bloodiest on record. In the words of Sam Hamill, "the children have seen so much death that death means nothing to them now."