On the National Day of Poetry was also a reading by a large number of local poets, and some from outside the DC area.

Emily Warn, of Lynchburg, VA, in concordance with Poets the War, along with at least 30 other poets converged in front of the White House at 12 PM, at the site of the daily Code Pink vigil. The readings began with a poem sent by Stanley Kunitz, former US poet laureate, who is now 97 years old.

The sound footage you have posted mentioned the activities they had that day, and just like at the event you described at All Saint's, when they announced the poems were being taken to Capitol Hill to be entered into (hopefully), the Congressional record, everyone cheered.

Along with the poets, were a few of us who are local activitsts at the peace vigil in front of the White House, including myself, and the feminist theologian group, WATER, who came that day to be part of the vigil.

During the reading, a large group of students on a field trip to see the White House - junior high school aged - came over and stood right on the fence, to hear some of the poetry.

Remarkably, the Park Police (and with some persuasion), did not try to make the group disperse despite that we did surpass the 25 person limit.

One local poet came out and said he had just written his poem that morning and delivered an awesome spoken word performance - loudly. Others read their own poetry, primarily all anti-war poetry, and some read anti-war poetry by other published poets. One man read a poem Robert Lowell had written during the Vietnam War about why he declined an invitation to visit the White House.

Some workers at the Code Pink office had thought the poets were planning on staying at the White House longer, which is why I had - based on that information - posted an invitation here for people to come out until 5 PM. But they did leave before 2:30, headed for the offices of two members of Congress, after the guard at the White House fence, did, not surprisingly, refuse to allow the anthology Emily Warn attempted to hand him of poetry by poets across the United States who had submitted their work to the Poets Against the War web site. She mentioned that only 50 selected poems had been brought to enter into the Congressional record, as the number sumbitted amounted to thousands of pages. It's an inspiring web site to view, if you look at how many people have submitted their writing to this project. www.poetsagainstthewar.org

The entire event was videotaped by a crew filming for the Poets Against the War web site, and a number of photographers volunteering to help with that documentation project were present. I also took a number of pictures which will be developed and posted hopefully today.

This is from the poem I read, unfortunately I don't have copies offhand of any of the other poetry read, but will try to get some to post with the pictures:

from, "Making Peace",
A voice from the dark called out,
"The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war"

But peace, like a poem,
iis not there ahead of itself,
can't be imagined before it is made,
can't be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid.

A feeling towards it,
dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have
until we begin to utter its metaphors,
learning them as we speak.

A line of peace might appear
if we reconstructed the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs, allowed
long pauses....

A cadence of peace might balance its weight
on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
might pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
one of its words, each word
a vibration of light-facets
of the forming crystal.

Denise Levertov; Breathing the Water, 1984