Refusing, Poets Against the War

Sometimes when I need a break from studying I try to do something that is, I think, equally as productive - reading for pleasure. One of the things I've been reading lately is poetry... I am not a fan of poetry in general, but after falling in love with the poetry of William Blake during my Romantics course last year I thought I'd give it a try ... some poetry is absolutely terrible, but some is worth reading over and over again ... one of my new favourite places to find poetry is Poets Against the War. Founded by Sam Hamill, the site is a collective of politically minded poets and their work, "Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression." Below is one poem that caught my eye, there are thousands of poems on the site ... something for everyone who wants to hate on war I guess =D

Refusing

by Gregory Orr

Refusing the invitation

I was not given,

being given instead

the invitation to refuse.

Which I accept.

Am grateful for.

The chance to be part of

the poet's chorus,

the caucus of those

whose politics

is obvious and earnest.

Whose wishes are simple:
sensible diplomacy,
everything to be negotiated.
Tough bargaining,
but easy on the violence.
That's what we poets
learned from poems:

it's all on the table,

but it's stupid

to break up the table

with an axe,

to splinter the chairs.

And it's madness
to ask poets to celebrate,
when people can't even
breathe deeply
for fear of war's imminence.

Here's another collective .... Animal Collective to be precise with My Girls. Okay so story behind this is that one day I was channel surfing and came across the video for this song on Much Music. I had missed the title and band but both Dorcas and I were so mesmerized by the trippy video that we had to watch the entire thing so that we could find out at the end who it was ... I'm still not sold on Animal Collective, however - this song is meh ... maybe their stuff will grow on me, maybe it won't ... + click on the picture ... this album cover is pretty trippy....