Poets for Peace — a collaborative annual showcase

Blip Roasters, 1301 Woodswether Road, KC MO 64105, in the West Bottoms

The first annual Poets for Peace showcase, hosted by PWKC in collaboration with Poetic Underground in May of 2023, was a vibrant spotlight on the poetry community’s call for peace and a highlight of our forthcoming annual Memorial Day protest of nuclear weapon production in KCMO.

Every spring we will feature organizations/leaders we align with, in addition to small businesses and artists to support.

We are grateful to Poetic Underground KC and Blip Coffee for collaborating with us.

Poppy Poem

"I plant poppies for protesters / For petitioners, for picket lines, and peace workers," says AP, the Poet, program director for Poetic Underground KC.

Resurrection Poem

It's the evening before Easter I read my daughter a children's book About Nina Simone Anna is curious

Multiple Steps for Peace

"Once again we return / To this site / Of immense / Destruction" -- so begins this poem by Ron Faust about the annual PeaceWorks Memorial Day observance. It occurs near the KC National Security Campus, where parts are made for nuclear weapons.

Chaos

... We need a cease–fire everywhere for our madness / For destruction, for nuclear weapons, for inequality / Only then, we stand on a thresh-hold of a new dawn.

Bye-Bye War

Ron Faust, in a poem, asks: What if we took part in provoking the Ukraine war / By continuing the Cold war / By hate rhetoric for an enemy ... ?

Reverse the “I”

Reflecting on the Ukraine/Russia war, poet Ron Faust admits, “we can’t see our hypocrisy / How we come across as aggressively superior / How we lie and deny our true intentions.”

Masks of Lies

The worse scare of Halloween is the deniers Who wear their masks of deceit in public Pretending to care for the down and outers But actually protecting their greedy interests

Knotty Karma

Ron Faust, poet, heard Japanese-Americans say on Aug. 7, “We should never build another nuclear weapon.” He wrote a warning: “As long as we are stuck (with the world having 13,000 nukes), We will shorten the time of the Doomsday Clock.”

Faust’s poetry scans American legacy, warts and all

Ron Faust, in his introduction to his new book, Percolating Poetry, says, “To have a cup of coffee / Is to take a break in the action.” He offers hope—saying hope lies in abolishing all nuclear weapons—and the fun of a few love poems.

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