Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression.
Julia Alvarez
VT
I am an author of four novels, poems, essays, children’s books, among them How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, In the Time of the Butterflies, and most recently, Before We Were Free (for young adults). Along with my husband, Bill Eichner, I run a sustainable farm/literacy project in my native country, the Dominican Republic. Currently, I am also a writer-in-residence at Middlebury College.
The White House Has Disinvited the Poets
The White House has disinvited the poets to a cultural tea in honor of poetry after the Secret Service got wind of a plot to fill Mrs. Bush’s ears with antiwar verse. Were they afraid the poets might persuade a sensitive girl who always loved to read, a librarian who stocked the shelves with Poe and Dickinson? Or was she herself afraid to be swayed by the cooing doves, and live at odds with the screaming hawks in her family?
The Latina maids are putting away the cups and the silver spoons, sad to be missing out on música they seldom get to hear in the hallowed halls. . . The valet sighs as he rolls the carpets up and dusts the blinds. Damn but a little Langston would be good in this dreary mausoleum of a place! Why does the White House have to be so white? The chef from Baton Rouge is starved for verse uncensored by Homeland Security.
NO POETRY UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE! Instead the rooms are vacuumed and set up for closed-door meetings planning an attack against the ones who always bear the brunt of silencing: the poor, the powerless, those who must serve, those bearing poems, not arms. So why be afraid of us, Mrs. Bush? You’re married to a scarier fellow. We bring you tidings of great joy— not only peace but poetry on earth.
