Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Poet's Witness Against War: The Greatest Poems of America's Leading Peace Poets, 1950-2000, with Commentary

The Poet's Witness Against War: The Greatest Poems of America's Leading Peace Poets, 1950-2000, with Commentary

Sharp, Richard

Paperback

Poetry CriticismGeneral Poetry

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 1579830684
ISBN13: 9781579830687
Publisher: Origin Press (CA)
Pages: 260
Language: English

The study of antiwar peace poetry is an essential practice for Americans who oppose our wars of aggression--especially so for all visionaries, pacifists, and social justice activists. The poetry of witness against war has an illustrious history, originating during the slaughter of the Mexican-American War and the Civil War and continuing through WWI, WWII, and the Korean War. The Poet's Witness Against War honors this great American tradition, but this work focuses on this genre's classic period, 1950-2000, closely examining the greatest works of the leading peace poets of the Cold War era. During the second half of the twentieth century, these men and women rose up in their conscience against the threat of nuclear war and America's ruinous military adventures during a time of constant crisis--most notably the Vietnam War. This book highlights several dozen poets whose immortal poems during this period condemned US military aggression or the threat of nuclear annihilation. They also expressed outrage and pity about the long-lasting effects of our wars--or threats of war--especially upon civilians and on our fragile earth. Many of these writers, readers will discover, denounced such state-sponsored wars of choice as the original political sin and as crimes against humanity. And almost all responded to the horrors of militarism with compassion as well as bitterness, while many were able to envision a great peace transcending ideology and all official versions of truth. Others were themselves active war resisters, heroic pacifists, and outspoken conscientious objectors. This work selects the greatest poems of this classic period to create a testament and historical record of the poetic witness against aggressive violence supported by our democratic institutions, and it serves as a paean that honors the immortal work of such intrepid writers as Denise Levertov, Robert Bly, W. S. Merwin, Robert Lowell, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Kenneth Patchen, William Everson, William Stafford, and many others.

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