Swiss poets unite against war
Anti-war protests took a poetic turn in Switzerland, when Swiss-based literati joined together for an evening of poetry for peace.
Eight poets participated in the multilingual event in the Swiss capital, reading their works in English, French, German and Italian.
Switzerland’s capital, Bern, hosted the evening of peace poems in a trendy café-bar near the city’s university. There was standing-room only at the popular gathering.
Two things united the people inside the venue – a love of poetry and a hatred of war.
The event was organised by one of the participating poets, Franz Andres Morrissey, a university lecturer.
He got the idea from the United States-based organisation, “Poets Against the War”, which co-ordinated poetry readings around the world to protest against the war in Iraq.
Morrissey had just two days to organise the Swiss event. “I was absolutely overwhelmed by the positive response, by the speed with which people said ‘yes, we’ll do it’,” he told swissinfo.
The mighty pen
As the bombs rained down on Iraq, eight Swiss-based poets were out to prove that the pen can be mightier than the sword.
One of the poets, Edessa Ramos, held her audience captive by beating an African drum between poems.
“How can I write you love poems… when in every embrace I swell not with the ecstasy of a romantic twist but with the despair of young men firing guns in wars beyond their comprehension and not of their making,” she said.
Zurich-based Ramos is a so-called veteran of the Poetry for Peace movement. She was part of the Poets Against War group while living in Chicago during the first Gulf War in 1991.
“It didn’t stop the war but it didn’t make it easy for the warmongers to make it happen and so I want to do the same thing this time,” she recalled.
Love poetry
Other poets included Caroline Schuhmacher from Neuchâtel with her French love poems, and Bern-based Erwin Messmer with his witty German stanzas.
Not all the poems were strictly about war. “Writing poetry about love and loneliness is a kind of a protest against war,” Schuhmacher explained.
Judging by their rapturous applause, the families and academics gathered at the event seemed more than happy to listen to the bards.
swissinfo, Faryal Mirza
A group of Swiss-based poets gathered in Bern to read out their anti-war verse.
The multilingual event was organised to coincide with similar readings being held around the globe.
Some of the poets were involved in a similar poetry for war movement during the first Gulf War.
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