Rhymes for a reason: poets to speak against war

Students whose appetites for anti-war protest were not whetted
by Wednesday’s walk-out will have the opportunity to shout
out their best stanzas at the Philosophical Research Society in Los
Feliz tonight.

Hosted by Poets Against the War, a coalition of like-minded
writers and organizations such as Poets for Peace and United Poets,
the poetry reading is billed as a town hall meeting-style protest
for peace and a celebration of the human spirit.

Special guest speakers will include former director of the
graduate creative writing program at USC Carol Muske-Dukes, current
poet-in-residence of the Los Angeles YMCA Larry Jaffe, and UCLA
Extension instructor Harry Youtt.

While the event will focus on the thoughts of some of Los
Angeles’ most respected working poets, the microphone will
also be open for audience members to share anti-war thoughts, prose
or poetry if the mood strikes them.

“I think it’s important for everybody to come out
against the war if that’s what they feel,” said Nancy
Lambert, the organizer of the event. “I don’t think
that poets or artists have any particular reason to do so. In fact
I would love to see this develop into something that transcends any
labeling or group.”

Poets Against the War has been actively scheduling and planning
events like these ever since first lady Laura Bush chose to cancel
a literary symposium scheduled for Feb. 12. The symposium would
have featured the works of Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes and Emily
Dickinson. Many people think the event was canceled because Bush
was worried that many of the poets who planned to attend would use
it as an opportunity to express views that go against her
husband’s current policies.

The first round of protest readings took place on Feb. 12, at
the behest of an e-mail circulated by poet Sam Hamill. Hamill had
been invited to attend the original symposium. More than 160
readings took place across the country, although one scheduled to
take place in front of Westwood’s federal building was called
off due to rain.

“It wasn’t even so much the war thing as much as it
was the censorship aspect of canceling the reading,” Jaffe
said. “(Mrs. Bush) was honoring two of the most revolutionary
poets in our literary history, Whitman and Hughes. Hughes was a
fierce anti-war poet and this is who they were honoring and this is
what got canceled. It’s very hypocritical. We live in
America, we’re supposed to be allowed to demonstrate those
feelings. So we created read-ins as opposed to sit-ins.”

Tonight’s event marks the end of a week that saw protests
and marches across the United States and the rest of the world. As
the Bush administration continues to make war preparations, many
poets are continuing to advocate peace despite mounting evidence
that most of the key decision-makers aren’t listening.

“It’s frightening how little attention is being
paid,” Lambert said. “I think Bush even said that
it’s wonderful that people are coming out and exercising
their free speech, but it’s their right to completely ignore
whatever is going on. They just don’t seem to care. But being
cynical isn’t going to help anything.”

The reading will be held at 3910 Los Feliz Blvd., Los Angeles.
For more info or to read or post anti-war poetry, go to

www.poetsagainstthewar.org.

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