Poetry and/against War

Well, Mrs. Bush was right. The poets wanted to deliberately deviate from the agenda of symposium in order to attack the White House. It would be unwise to permit them doing this. It is illegal to shut them up at all, but White House is not supposed to support the anti-American propaganda either.

By the way, why do not the same poets protest against policies of Saddam? Saddam is an open warmonger that occupied Kuwait in 1990 and launched the Irano-Iraqi war (I am not a great admirer of the Islamic Republic, but it was Iraqi initiative to start the war, and oil-rich borderline areas were the reason for it).
IMHO, such a biased position of the poets can be easily explained: unlike Mr. Bush, Saddam does not belong to the Republican Party of the USA.

Yeah. If you don't want to shoot stab blow up and murder Saddam you must love him and think the way he does.

I truly doubt that, Edgar!

puzzling that the poets thought anyone would pay attention to them.
puzzling that mrs. bush who was apparently a librarian would not support free speech at all costs.


she's probably given this more coverage by her action than it would have received otherwise.

I started a thread called "100 Poets" to highlight the speedy response to a request for poetry submissions to an eBook of protest towards the US relentless rush to war on Iraq:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3651/

The ebook is one of the fastest ever compiled and ePublished. It is available for free download on a site called the nth position, an online magazine of thoughtful essays. That site has the download, using Adobe, for those interested.

See the other thread for the details - this is what ties into this story that Walter has highlighted for us here in a2k

It would have been wiser for the poets not to attempt to politicize the event in advance. If they were going to protest, they should have been steathier and kept quiet about it until they got to the White House.

steissd

The poems are ant-war (as well as the poets), not anti-America.
And obviously you didn't notice that the symposium should take place in the USA, not in Iraq.

I think, when we look at some poets back in history, we love them today, because they warned = politized in advance.

About a year ago, the First Lady said she liked poetry, in part, because it's apolitical. Many of us were astounded by her naivete at the time. Sounds like the chickens have come home to roost, Mrs. Bush!

There were poets with opposite political approaches as well, and this did not make them less talented. Joseph R. Kipling, for example, or Gabriele d'Annunzio...
Russian poets Pushkin or Lermontov, German Max Schneckenburger (the author of the text of "Die Wacht am Rhein"), Israeli Byalik and Uri Grinberg were not pacifists either.

No one's arguing that all poets are political, and left-of-center or pacifists. Mrs. Bush seems to have been surprised that some of them are, though.

Something similar occurred during the Johnson Administration, if memory serves, with protests over the war in Vietnam. Anyone remember this better than I do?

Whatever happened to equal time? A hawk poem/a dove poem...and then somewhere in the middle, we just might find a plain poem.

After all, there are many muses.

Well, the poets have chosen an inappropriate time and place for declaring their political stances. That is like delivering a sermon in favor of devil in the Catholic cathedral.

d'artagan: i remember vaguely when LBJ said he didn't want any of them damn poets near his white house.

""I don't want anything to do with poets,'' Lyndon Johnson is said to have ordered aides after one came to the White House and criticized the Vietnam War. "Don't bring me any poets.'' It's not as if they have nothing to say."

dyslexia,

Is there a message here?

Ah, my friend,
An unhappy end
Has brought you to this sunken home;
A plight, a blight, in which you played no role.

Gone at such a gentle age;
A sage you might have been,
A blend.

No longer....
No more.....
And this could be an epitaph for?

Consider the power of language in the following poem:

"The Death Of The Ball Turret Gunner"

Randall Jarrel

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State.
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.


Little wonder Laura Bush cancelled! Who in their right mind would go up against something like that?

A quick perusal brought up three poems that I would like to share. This second one by Stephen Crane is bitter beyond belief. I believe it is about the Civil War.

"War is Kind" Stephen Crane

Do not weep, maiden, for war is kiind.
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone.
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Hoarse, booming drums fo the regiement,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to dirill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the battle-god, and his kingdom-
A field where a thousand corpses lie.

Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches
Raged at his breast, gulped and died.
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold.
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killiing,
And a gield where a thousand corpses lie.

Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your si=on.
Do nor weep.
War is kind.