...courage tastes like cinnamon.

Sarah Browning quoted these words of Kurdish child poets from Iraq, now refugees in Virginia, who were in Washington, DC last weekend for the Split this Rock Poetry Festival. March 19^th marked the 5^th year of the Bush administration's Iraq invasion and protests were held nationwide. The festival culminated a week of local anti-war events.

First, Maryland hosted Winter Soldier "II" from March 13-16: 3 days of eyewitness testimonies from US soldiers who occupied Iraq & Afghanistan (the first Winter Soldier testimonies were in Detroit in 1971: Vietnam vets, same crap, different decade).

 "Ladies and gentlemen, I hate guns. I spent ten years in the military, and I carried two of them on my side in Iraq, but I think they should be melted down and turned into jewelry. To this day, that is the worst thing that I have ever done in my life. I am a peaceful person, but yet in Iraq I drew down on an eighty-year-old geriatric woman who could not see me, because I was in front of a desert-colored vehicle-or, excuse me, desert-colored building wearing desert-colored camouflage."  
    

Jason Hurd (10 years of service: US Army & Tennessee's 278^th Regimental Combat Team in Iraq)Part of his testimony at the Winter Soldier hearings in Maryland 

The soldiers told the facts and their feelings about everything: hung-over contractors who were paid 4 times better, the stop-loss policies of excessive tours of duty, drop weapons & shovels (to drop by a killed Iraqi who turned out to be unarmed), the disintegration of the "rules of engagement,' over-medicated PTSD soldiers, health care and more than you ever wanted to know but need to. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now interviewed Vietnam vets, Camilo Mejia (considered the first soldier to refuse to be re-deployed in Iraq) and other "GI Resistance" organizers.

On March 19^th, not only were Maryland eco-warriors & steel workers lobbying in Annapolis, not only was actor Russell Crowe hangin' out at historic Ben's Chili Bowl in DC (drat!), but local non-violent protesters lined the major government buildings in the nation's capital. Before I arrived at the IRS building, 31 folks had already been arrested. Participants objected to money collected by the IRS being used to help finance Bush's war instead of social programs at home. Over a hundred creative folks were there and 20 sponsoring organizations. Ultimately, participants marched toward the White House and lots of cops were afoot that might have been mostly Homeland Security. This is the first time I've seen their vehicles; I didn't know they actually had a cop force of their own...creepy.

And then, from March 20-23, the poetry festival took place. Split this Rock was borne from the desire of many to lift their voices against this war (spearheaded by DC Poets against the War) and for a healthier, more democratic existence. Sonia Sanchez opened the festival which was held at several venues, including the famous Busboys & Poets (owned by Iraqi-American, Anas Shallal) named for Langston Hughes (who was both). The title of the festival also comes from a line of Langston's poem, Big Buddy.

I recently realized how powerful blogging can be. Attending the festival fully reconnected me with how powerful words can be in general.

How:

• Walt Whitman wrote his objections of the presidency & congress of his time,
• award-winning poet, Sharon Olds, formally declined Laura Bush's National Book Festival invitation because of the Bush war policy in the most cutting and eloquent way,
• Pam Uschuk's husband went from a big-publishing house author & New Yorker contributor to being black-balled  because he refused to remove a poem he had written about the Afghanistan occupation from an upcoming book,
• Rumi-translator, Coleman Barks, was invited to a presidential event and took the opportunity to point out to President Bush the mistake of "staying the course" in a poetic work inspired by a chance meeting with a soldier's father.

Their words were razor sharp...who can express the spirit of a nation better than the poet?!

Last Wednesday, I was at the IRS to bear witness more so than march. Sunday, being an artist, I marched with the poets, from George Washington University to the White House, watching the police watch us, following all the rules: walk on the sidewalk, no tripods or other stand-alone structures, bags must be no more than 3 feet from you at all times...a very different Amerika.

We arrived at Lafayette Park (directly in front of the White House) where other poets met us to create a cento, a combination of many poem lines into one creative work. The police brought in one of their dogs to check the stage (the only allowed stand-alone structure) for concussive poetry before we began.

Earlier in the day, author Naomi Ayala read one of her poems in which she sang to War so that War would leave. Don't forget the power of the word; perhaps, we all need to sing.