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Announcement :: Peace |
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Attention News Poets |
Current rating: 0 |
by sam hamill via gehrig
(No verified email address) |
27 Jan 2003
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Forwarded message: protest Feb 12. White House reception for poets |
January 19, 2003
Dear Friends and Fellow Poets:
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 nausea as I read the card enclosed:
Laura Bush
requests the pleasure of your company
at a reception and
White House Symposium on
"Poetry and the American Voice"
on Wednesday, February 12, 2003
at one o'clock
Only the day before I had read a lengthy report on the President'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.
I am asking every poet to speak up for the conscience of our country and lend his or her name to our petition against this war, and to make February 12 a day of Poetry Against the War. We will compile an anthology of protest to be presented to the White House on that afternoon.
Please submit your name and a poem or statement of conscience to: kokua (at) olympus.net
There is little time to organize and compile. I urge you to pass along this letter to any poets you know. Please join me in making February 12 a day when the White House can truly hear the voices of American
poets.
Sam Hamill
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