Poets protest possible war through poems

The poets reading in Room 324 of the Cathedral of Learning on Wednesday night were united… The poets reading in Room 324 of the Cathedral of Learning on Wednesday night were united for the cause of peace, but not all found the need to express this in their poetry.

Adam Atkinson, a Carnegie Mellon University sophomore, read first, and introduced his poems by joking, “If you want to read into them and interpret them as anti-war poems, go right ahead.”

Emily Green, another CMU student, shared a poem about wanting to bear and raise her mother as her child.

Several of the dozen poets, however, took an open and specific stance against the pending war in Iraq. Andrew Nease, a Pitt student who earned his master’s degree in creative writing from Iowa State University, said that one of his poems was inspired by the fact that he feared President Bush.

One of his poems, a play on the story “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” portrayed Bush as the emperor, who asked, “What’s wrong, and who can I murder to stop this?” Another of his poems asked, “How do they fit 30,000 dead Iraqi children in a pie chart?”

Several of the poets read selections from other poets’ work. David Atkinson, a senior at Pitt, read a poem by William Carlos Williams, which included the line, “Peace requires genius to be preached – it is a rare, high thing.”

The event, billed as “Poets for Peace II,” was part of a nationwide movement of poets protesting against the war. The movement has also taken root in the United Kingdom.

The movement has been spearheaded by poet Sam Hamill, whom First Lady Laura Bush invited to participate in a poetry symposium at the White House. The symposium was scheduled for Feb. 12.

Hamill, founding editor of Copper Canyon Press, declined the invitation and wrote an open letter to his colleagues, calling for them “to make February 12 a day of Poetry Against the War.”

Mrs. Bush later postponed her symposium.

The reading garnered an audience of about 75 people for nearly an hour of poetry.