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Bring On The Anti-War Poetry
The duty of the poet
I have been a poet since the 1980s. I have written on all kinds of topics. Yes, I have written anti-war poetry. Today, I shall read somewhere in my community. This is what poets do. We try, in our best way, through words, to speak truth to power. We make a record. The record is: No, we don’t agree. We are against war. We are against violence. We object!
The first time I remember writing a poem directly in response to violence by the U.S. was when the U.S. invaded Kuwait. I opposed that war and opposed it with my heart, soul, and mind. It was, like most wars in the modern era, a crime against humanity. A betrayal of trust. George H.W. Bush, the man who concocted that war, should have gone to prison for war crimes.
I remember gathering with other poets during that time and opposing the war on the streets of where I was living but also with poetry. If I didn’t have enough poetry of my own, I would read the poetry of other poets who raised their voices in protest.
And poems attacking war and violence need not be about just the war itself in the abstract. When they are good, they are the personal, like this line from England’s Siegfried Sassoon’s The Hero:
“‘Jack fell as he’d have wished,’ the mother said,
And folded up the letter that she’d read.”
