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

Cathleen Calbert

43 years old

Cathleen Calbert is the author of three books of poetry: Lessons in Space, Bad Judgment, and Sleeping with a Famous Poet. She currently serves as the Director of Creative Writing at Rhode Island College

Softening Up

Softening Up



A girl, burning,
runs naked north of Saigon
and screams into eternity.

A mother bathing
her forever-daughter
is infinitely tender in Minamata.

A woman/soldier,
pointing to men’s genitals,
gives a thumb’s up.

This woman is looking
down on a leashed dog
of a man, her prisoner.

This woman is smiling
beside her boyfriend,
behind a mound of bodies.

A girl, really, she is
fresh from Kentucky,
a chicken-processing factory.

She’s trailer trash.
She’s no one’s princess.
She’s not even Jessica Lynch.

She’s having some fun.
She’s following orders.
She’s softening them up.

Now from this soldier’s
essential/constructed
woman’s body, a son.

She’s a mother.
My heart shatters
into a thousand rubies.

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