Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression.

Deirdre Lockwood

31 years old

I'm a graduate student in oceanography at the University of Washington, and the experiences I had doing research in Southeast Asia inspired this poem. I received an M.A. in poetry from Boston University, and my poems have appeared in Seneca Review and The Threepenny Review.

American Sonnet

American Sonnet

May’s face looks like the carvings on the temples at Angkor
but I don’t say anything for fear I’ll offend her.
In Phea’s dark hair one streak of grey conjures Emmy Lou Harris
but the lace of discolor behind her ear tells me arsenicosis.
Bunseang’s fingernails are smooth as the silts of the Mekong
but he loads our equipment as if to prove me wrong.
All of us are scientists, all of us have our reasons.
We are driving to Angkor, through sharp soft green rice
none of us remember plundered with bombs.
Is it enough to admit our mistakes if we make them again?
The water here is plural with metals, and we long
for alchemy, to filter clear from cloudy, but can only
warn people away. These are my friends.
We come close, then we turn into symbols again.

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