More of this Feature • Part 1, Poetry in the Garden? • Part 3, America Dreaming • “Incident in a Rose Garden,” a poem by George Wallace • “Lunch at the Rose Garden,” a poem by nnenko

Join the Discussion • Poems in political discourse “What do you think? Could the First Lady reasonably expect to keep political statements out of a Rose Garden poetry symposium?”    --Poetry Guide

Related Articles • Poems For Peace, our new anthology • Poets in the News links to other articles on these events

Elsewhere on the Web • Poetsagainstthewar.org (US) • Poets Against the War (UK) • Poets4Peace.com at the United Poets Coalition • Australian Poets for Peace Project • “Not In Our Name, a statement of conscience against war and repression” • “After the Fall,” Artists for Peace, Justice and Civil Liberties • “Convergence,” Canadian poems for peace

RUSH TO ACTION

Todd Swift would be inclined to believe that someone is listening. Swift is a Canadian-born poet living in Paris and the poetry editor for NthPosition. His online anthology, 100 Poets Against the War, was inspired by the poet’s antipathy toward the burgeoning threat of the United States’ war against Iraq.

“Poets have an ability to articulate the common hopes and fears,” says Swift, “but their ability to use language with care, and suspicion of jargon, allows them to cut through the banality of the arguments for war, and present a more humane case for peace, or at least caution. Poets, like everyone else, don’t fall on one side or the other of the political spectrum; but many do feel ill at ease with the current jingoism of the Bush regime, and have a role to play: that of gadfly in a society where too few people are willing to speak out.”

The first edition of 100 Poets Against the War was completed in about a week, and subsequent editions have since appeared. (Each new edition replaces roughly 25% of the preceding editions, so there’s some new and some old in each reiteration, all of them posted in PDF format for download at NthPosition.) Concurrently, Hamill’s Poets Against the War Web site has acquired a database of more than 5,300 poems. Both collections, and the many Poets Against the War readings scheduled for the 12th, were pulled together at a breathtaking speed -- an indication that there was a pre-existing potential for action merely awaiting a spark.

And while the pot was boiling before the aborted Rose Garden poetry symposium, the cancellation of the event has become a sort of Boston Tea Party, if you will, a straw that broke the metaphorical camel’s back. “The comedy of the cancellation is that to say that poetry and politics don’t mix is patently absurd,” says Swift. “To read poetry as not political is to miss some of its wider nuances.”

This is a point that no one, save perhaps the First Lady, is arguing. Politics -- in its grander sense, the sense of how human being relate to one another -- is intrinsic to the nature of poetry. Indeed, politics, in almost any definition of the term, is part and parcel of the emotional terrain that casts the poet as surveyor.

“I’ve always maintained,” says poet Wanda Coleman, “that when I sneeze it is political; as a Black American of Slave Origin, anything I say or write is organically part of the ultimate protest decrying the unresolved residuals of Slavery and the ongoing cultural damage of racism. Therefore, there is no leap for me to make when it comes to protesting this particular war, if my reasons for doing so are culture-specific. As for the current wave of antiwar poetry... basically, I laud the energy; however, I wish it would extend itself to the marginalization of poetry and poets in American as a whole, and the climate of anti-intellectualism fostered not only by the Religious Right but by the so-called liberal news and review media in general. There’s been a chill on serious reviews of contemporary poetry and new voices since the 80s.”

The reference to the media is not unwarranted. Television stations and newspapers -- the most prominent news sources -- are controlled by a shrinking number of hands and present a myopic view of the world that, at its best, is reluctant to challenge the country’s power structure and, to put it charitably, is poor at delivering the visceral, emotional truth of an issue. That emotional truth has always been the province of the poet.

“The poetry is always there,” says poet and columnist Patricia Smith, “seething quietly, until it’s roused by some CNN-touted conflict. We seek out what we need in the times we need it. When we need poetic outcry against war, we go looking for it -- in the voices of others, in our own voice. And it rises up from where it’s been sleeping.”

“American poetry is America’s best spiritual and sociological self,” says Coleman, “However... I don’t think that poetry itself is being shut out by the White House -- only the poetry of those poets who disagree with President Bush’s policy toward Iraq. The possible danger in all of this is -- suppose Bush were right? I think the true tragedy of the Bush administration is its reluctance to have that all-important true dialogue with the poets -- with those who oppose his policy -- and to view such a dialogue as an opportunity to create an atmosphere of mutual respect, understanding and cooperation. But then -- when intolerance, bias and bigotry govern there is never a dialogue -- there is only the shut up dictum: censorship, cabals and handcuffs.”

It should be noted that while many poets have viewed the shutting down of the symposium as censorship, others have had a different take on it. “Censorship would be saying you can’t protest the war at all,” says Tony Brown. “Censorship would be if they start shutting down readings for protests. This falls directly in line with those who want to define what poetry is and is not.” Which, of course, has been a source of factional infighting among poets themselves since two poets first entered the same room a few thousand years ago. But perhaps there is something to the implied insult; it’s the idea that the First Lady, acting in a semiofficial capacity, would be in a position to “impose” a definition on poetry’s nature that’s so galling. And perhaps therein lies a touch of the tragedy.

If the Rose Garden event had happened as planned, it’s doubtful anyone would have given a damn. Certainly, Hamill’s call for poems had already gained some momentum before the cancellation, including work by the likes of Adrienne Rich and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. A number of poets would likely have boycotted. A few protestors might have shown up outside and read antiwar poems. Marilyn Nelson, Connecticut’s poet laureate, might have indeed worn a silk scarf with peace signs on it as she claims she intended. It’s doubtful any of it would have amounted to much.

Instead, Mrs. Bush’s action -- a less charitable soul might call it a hissy fit -- gave both poets and journalists a hook to hang outrage on, an inadvertently symbolic act with greater repercussions than originally intended. “I don’t believe Mrs. Bush really had any idea what kind of political statement the poets who were going to read would have made, and she didn’t attempt to find out,” says California-based poet Steve Ramirez. “Poetry can become a call to arms against an issue, but it can also lend reason and foresight. It can be a cautionary voice. The cancellation sets a dangerous precedent by shutting down an event because there is a possibility that it won’t agree with what the current administration wants to have heard. Though many people may make the jump to saying that’s trampling on free speech, I think it does something different, and perhaps worse: it provides a platform for free speech, then when it’s discovered there’s the mere possibility of a dissenting voice, it takes that platform away. It doesn’t squash dissension, it makes a pre-emptive strike against the possibility. Consider the legislation passed considering pre-emptive strikes and add them together... it makes a pretty scary picture.”

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