[Reader-list] Fw: Instant Global Anthology: 100 poets enlisted in protest against war

[Gayatri Chatterjee]

----- Original Message -----
From: Ethan Gilsdorf <egilsdorf at yahoo.com>
To: <egilsdorf at yahoo.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 8:23 PM
Subject: Instant Global Anthology: 100 poets enlisted in protest against war


> Dear friends:
>
> Please excuse this impersonal e-mail.
>
> I was asked to be part of a remarkable poetry
> anthology that was edited by Todd Swift in only one
> week and released yesterday to coincide with the
> United Nations Blix report and U.S. President Bush's
> State of the Union address. Called  "100 Poets Against
> the War", the anthology is available on the Internet,
> where it can be downloaded for free.
>
> Already this anthology has received press in one of
> Canada's major newspapers, the Globe and Mail, which
> reported, "In one day, the book (available at
> http://www.nthposition.com) spread like wildfire on
> the Internet, with people around the world reading the
> works of these poets, who congregated in one place to
> beat the antiwar drum."
>
> I encourage you to go to www.nthposition.com to read
> and download the  PDF file, print it out, give it
> away, share it with friends, host it on your own
> websites, write about it, and send this message along
> to your local and national papers in America, Canada,
> the UK, Ireland, Australia and wherever else you may
> be, so that the media will get a sense of how
> exciting, inspiring and vital this ongoing story of
> the power of poetic protest can be.
>
> I've included a copy of the news story and the press
> release, below.
>
> Peaceful wishes,
>
> ethan
> Paris Coordinator
> United Poets Coalition /Poets for Peace
>
>
>
>
>
> From globeandmail.com, Tuesday, January 28, 2003
>
> 100 poets enlisted in protest against war
> Montreal-born Todd Swift has organized
> an e-mail demonstration of antiwar verse
> GAYLE MacDONALD
>
>
>
> One week ago, the Montreal-born poet Todd Swift was
> sitting in a Paris
> cafe,
> reading The Guardian, fuming about the hard-line
> American stance on war
> with
> Iraq.
>
>
> He decided to organize a protest -- of powerful words
> and haunting
> images.
> And yesterday, to coincide with the release of the UN
> weapons
> inspectors'
> report, Swift e-mailed an anthology called 100 Poets
> Against the War to
> friends, family and far-flung acquaintances.
>
>
> In one day, the book (available at
> http://www.nthposition.com) spread
> like
> wildfire on the Internet, with people around the world
> reading the
> works of
> these poets, who congregated in one place to beat the
> antiwar drum.
>
>
> "What I was hoping to do with this book is contribute
> to a growing
> sense
> that we're not a minority in opposing this war any
> more," said Swift,
> 36,
> who was reached by phone yesterday in the French
> capital where he is
> currently living with his fiancee. "In fact, we're
> becoming a cultural
> majority.
>
>
> "Most Europeans are quite upset by what looks like an
> aggressive,
> unilateral
> push by the United States for war, at a time when
> everyone else wants
> time
> for further discussion and more reflection," added
> Swift.
>
>
> "I thought, let's move quickly and get something out
> that inspires and
> contains a powerful message. I wanted to let people
> who are opposed to
> the
> war know they're not alone."
>
>
> Canadian contributors include Robert Priest, bill
> bissett, Maggie
> Helwig, Di
> Brandt and George Murray.
>
>
> The Toronto-born Murray, who now lives in New York,
> said the 100 Poets
> Against the War initiative is important for what it
> awakens and also
> for the
> values it attempts to instill. "So many people seem to
> think that the
> poet
> or poetry doesn't have a useful place in society,"
> said Murray, who
> contributed his poem The Field.
>
>
> "But poetry is the oldest form of the evening news,
> and it used to play
> a
> very critical role politically. First, by
> disseminating information and
> second, by commenting on it.
>
>
> "This kind of effort, regardless of how valuable each
> poem is on its
> own, as
> a collection represents a step forward for the kind of
> activism that
> poets
> need to be part of, that the arts community needs to
> be part of."
>
>
> Murray says he just received an e-mail from the
> American poet Sam
> Hamill,
> who is trying to organize a project similar to Swift's
> 100 Poets
> Against the
> War.
>
>
> Hamill was inspired by a letter he received from the
> White House, which
> requested his company at an afternoon reception and
> symposium on
> "Poetry and
> the American Voice" on Feb. 12. In his e-mail, Hamill
> told literary
> colleagues: "When I picked up my mail and saw the
> letter marked 'The
> White
> House,' I felt no joy. Rather I was overcome by a kind
> of nausea."
>
>
> In his note, Hamill said, "Only the day before I had
> read a lengthy
> report
> on President Bush's proposed 'Shock and Awe' attack on
> Iraq, calling
> for
> saturation bombing that would be like the firebombing
> of Dresden or
> Tokyo,
> killing countless innocent civilians.
>
>
> "I believe the only legitimate response to such a
> morally bankrupt and
> unconscionable idea is to reconstitute a Poets Against
> the War movement
> like
> the one organized to speak out against the war in
> Vietnam." (Hamill is
> referring to the 1967 antiwar demonstration that
> featured leading
> literary
> lights such as Robert Lowell, Allen Ginsberg and
> Norman Mailer, who
> attempted to "levitate" the Pentagon. Mailer later
> celebrated the march
> in
> his work The Armies of the Night.)
>
>
> Hamill then asked every poet "to speak up for the
> conscience of our
> country
> and lend his or her name to our petitition against
> this war," which he
> plans
> to present to first lady Laura Bush on Feb. 12, a day
> he hopes will
> become
> dedicated to poetry against the war.
>
>
>     The field
>
>
>
>
>
>     By George Murray
>
>
>
>
>
>     The sky has been aged, is ancient enough now
>
>
>     to have lost its teeth, clamping one smooth gum
>
>
>
>
>
>     down on the other in a wry horizon's bite.
>
>
>     That the violence we have witnessed
>
>
>
>
>
>     was not random while the kindness was,
>
>
>     how insulting to our attempts at existentialism!
>
>
>
>
>
>     Can we not even frighten ourselves
>
>
>     with philosophy anymore? That intent
>
>
>
>
>
>     could replace randomness as our greatest fear
>
>
>     speaks of how far we've come;
>
>
>
>
>
>     from there to here, from right to just left of
> right,
>
>
>     from fallen to the lower part of down. The corn
>
>
>
>
>
>     that stretches into the distance,
>
>
>     once an orderly army, has grown slack, wild,
>
>
>
>
>
>     and hoary, each stalk standing at ease
>
>
>     instead of attention, and in a place of its
> choosing,
>
>
>
>
>
>     bearing those heavy yellow arms in a silence
>
>
>     similar to hushed anticipation. Listen to the
> wind,
>
>
>
>
>
>     the brewing rain, the field of fire, the flight
>
>
>     of distant machinery, the coded plan of attack.
>
>
>
>
>
>     -- From 100 Poets Against the War, published on
> http://www.nthposition.com
>
> Visit the globeandmail.com Web Centre, your
> competitive edge for
> breaking
> news stories as they happen.
>
> News: http://www.globeandmail.com
> Copyright 2003 | Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc.
>
> *******************
>
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 27, 2003
>
> RECORD-BREAKING GLOBAL COLLECTION OF POETRY TIMED TO
> COINCIDE WITH BLIX UN REPORT
>
> In a remarkable show of global protest against a
> possible war with Iraq, over 100 of the world's
> leading, mid-career and emerging poets who work in the
> English language, have gathered their work together in
> a book of new peace poems.
>
> 100 Poets Against The War is perhaps the
> fastest-assembled world anthology ever. Editor Todd
> Swift, working with Val Stevenson of Nthposition.com,
> announced the first call for poems last Monday,
> January 20, 2003.  Within hours, poems from dozens of
> countries were pouring in.
>
> "Poets usually take weeks, if not months, to submit
> poems for an anthology," says editor Swift, "so I was
> astonished when they sent me poems within hours and
> days of my call for new work."
>
> Over the week, Swift and Stevenson selected, edited
> and arranged the collection of powerful poems, into a
> format designed for maximum impact.  The anthology of
> poems will be presented on the website
> http://www.nthposition.com  as a PDF file.
>
> As all contributors have donated their poems, any and
> all interested readers, writers and peace activists
> are encouraged to download the file, share it, host it
> on their own sites, and ultimately print it up and
> make it into a book of poetry.
>
> "It would have been impossible to complete the project
> within this time-scale without the Internet," added
> Stevenson. "The poems come from all over the world,
> they were commissioned and edited in Paris, page
> lay-out was in London, and file conversion was done in
> the States."
>
> "The plan is to make a book of poems against the
> attack on Iraq instantly available to anyone who wants
> it, anywhere in the world," says editor and poet Todd
> Swift.
>
> The collection features many widely-published and
> award-winning poets across a broad spectrum, from
> performance to new formalism, and seeks to fuse a
> political, inspiring message with well-written verse.
>
> It is available as of Monday, January 27, 2003 from
> www.nthposition.com
>
> For further information, please contact the editor,
> Todd Swift:
> todd at toddswift.com
>
> or Val Stevenson, of nthposition.com:
> val at nthposition.com
> tel: (London) (0)20 7485 5002
>
>
> =====
> Ethan Gilsdorf, 9 rue Gossec, 75012 Paris France, tel: 33 (0)1 46 28 35 58
> ---------
> "(I am) anxious, agitated, unable to enjoy anything that I have finished,
and never content except when undertaking something new and doing three
things at the same time."-- Alexander von Humboldt, scientist-explorer, "My
Confessions," 1806
>
> __________________________________________________
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