INDIAN ISLAND — One by one, poets stood just a stone’s throw from the entrance to Naval Magazine Indian Island, delivering their solemn, impassioned words, all with a common theme: End all war.
Pacifists from Port Townsend and beyond marched nearly four miles Saturday from H.J. Carroll Park in Chimacum to Indian Island County Park, where about 60 sat relaxed on grass the Oak Bay shoreline, quietly listening to the words that help carry their cause.
They also arrived in cars bearing bumper stickers that stated, “War is terrorism,” “Democrat women are the life of the party,” and “Peace through music.”
The event started about noon, shortly after Raven and his All My Relations drummers greeted the marchers as the entered the park.
Poet Sam Hamill read from his own poems — “Vigilance” and “Eyes Wide Open” — and introduced poets for peace from around the region.
“I got under my desk with the rest of the foolish world,” Hamill read from “Eyes Wide Open.”
‘Poetry changes lives’
Hamill, former Copper Canyon Press founder-editor who now heads the nationwide group Poets Against the War, told attentive rally-goers: “I really do think that poetry changes lives, and it changes them one life at a time.”
The Indian Island poets’ protest capped off Indian Island Awareness Week, promoted by the Port Townsend Depleted Uranium Study Team, Port Townsend Peace Movement and Veterans for Peace, Rachel Corrie Chapter.
