Averse to War

"For me, the issue is always handling the narrative voice, the 'I.' "

"I wanted my 'I' to be the lens through which you saw what was going on but not to have the poems be about me."

The poets know that to matter, they must break out of the usual poetry circles. They'll grab any chance to read, anywhere: a boxing ring, a nursing home, a tortilla factory, the mall. Most important of all: schools.

Scores of D.C. schoolchildren submitted work to a contest hosted by Split This Rock. Amid all the adults grappling with heavy themes, it was refreshing to hear the simple and profound couplet of an 8-year-old:

My neighborhood is short and small

But we are not far from Hechinger Mall

San Antonio poet Naomi Shihab Nye dreams of poetry conceiving a different kind of neighborhood: "We could at least create in language a country within a country where we continue to emphasize humanity, and embrace-of-difference, and willingness to listen to one another. Poets, as these marginal renegades, have fulfilled a very important place in our society in these last years, because the status quo didn't feel as comfortable speaking out as we did."

Nye writes books for children, and saves her tougher political poetry for adults. She tries to humanize Arabs while confronting the U.S. reflex for war. From her opening-night reading, a poem called "Letters My President Is Not Sending":

Dear Rafik, Sorry about that soccer game you won't be attending since you now have no . . .

Dear Fawziya, You know, I have a mom too so I can imagine what you . . .

Dear Shadiya, Think about your father versus democracy, I'll bet you'd pick . . .

No, no, Sami, that's not true what you said at the rally that our country hates you, we really support your move toward freedom, that's why you no longer have a house or a family or a village . . .

Dear Hassan, If only you could see the bigger picture . . .

The next morning, she gives a reading for preschoolers, children still young enough to be shielded from the images she raises in her "Letters." They sit cross-legged on the floor before her, their upturned faces fixed on her as she reads to them.

She shows the children her pretty blue zippered pencil case, and her little plastic pencil sharpener.

"That's your power tool," she says. "As a writer, that's all you need."