On the evening of President’s Day 2003 (17 Feb.), many of US’s greatest poets gathered at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, New York City to read poems in protest of the war. The event had been presented by the Not In Our Name Statement of Conscience, and featured Poet laureates and Pulitzer-prize winners, along with beloved poets from the hip hop and slam poetry scenes.
This evening had been put together in answer to a call by Sam Hamill, a poet who had been invited by Laura Bush to a White House poetry symposium on February 12; his response was to send an e-mail to 50 friends asking them for antiwar poems to send to Mrs. Bush. In four days he received 1,500 poems. Laura Bush subsequently cancelled the symposium, saying she "did not believe that poetry should be used for political purposes." Hamill then called for nationwide anti-war poe-try readings against the war.
This is the first time in recent memory that such an extraordinary and wide-ranging group of poets has appeared on a stage together. Most are signers of the Statement of Conscience (cf. FCE no 108).
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