April 4, 2003 4 In late January, Sam Hamill called upon writers to "reconstitute a Poets Against the War movement like the one organized to speak out against the war in Vietnam." He asked writers, “to speak up for the conscience of our country and lend your names to our petition against this war” by submitting “a poem or statement of conscience to the Poets Against the War web site.”

The response was overwhelming. Over 13,000 poems were submitted including work by Adrienne Rich, W. S. Merwin, Galway Kinnell, Robert Bly, Marilyn Hacker, Grace Schulman, Shirley Kaufman, Wanda Coleman, Yusef Komunyakaa, Katha Pollitt, Hayden Carruth, Jane Hirshfield, Tess Gallagher, Sandra Cisneros and former Poet Laureate Rita Dove. Poets Against the War collects some of the best poems submitted to the website. This anthology is both a cry against impending war and a celebration of the long and rich tradition of moral opposition and dissent by American writers and artists.