DOES a strike by poets sound contradictory?

Not to the Café Poets of Watson, who recently used World Poetry Day (March 21) to launch an ongoing their protest against wars.

Last time, they are saying, when many poets marched with 9 million other people across the globe to object to the war inIraq, it was too late.

“We need more lead-time so we’ll be heard,” they say, in a leaflet that is their opening gambit.

“Once we had shared our horror that yet another war was under consideration, we used World Poetry Day as an excuse to move out into the street. We read poem after poem, expressing our deepest fears for our beloved planet.”

Some of their poems are included in the World Poetry Day leaflet, but there are plenty more where they came from.

The Café Poets are happy for their poems to be published. As they say, “the wild hope is that they might, through a circuitous route, tip a decision to go to war”.

Inquiries to fionamcilroy@bigpond.com and nasturtium2@bigpond.com

[box]“Knitting for Peace” by Denise Burton

I am knitting a scarf

with silver threads

and shiny circles
As the thread slips

through my fingers

the spangles wink at me

with metallic thread

into a suitable shape

I will take my scarf

to the oval office

and teach Mr President
To knit with spangles

instead of fighting

with deadly weapons
A disciplined President

knitting threads of peace

listening, chatting, smiling
Making his own

Star-Spangled Banner

for peace.
for peace. [/box]