Charles Finn

Fuel for War: Patriotic Entrancement Charles Finn

Fuel for Ware hopes to help break a spell, an Earth-imperiling entrancement that weaves together patriotism, nationalism, and war. That its hold on Americans is particularly fierce is grimly demonstrated yet again in the recent Gulf Wars. Until we collectively awaken from this spell and begin espousing a broader patriotism, elicited by the stupendous image from the moon of the living jewel of a single family on a fragile planet, peace will be but a nervous interlude between ever more destructive and dispiriting wars, boding ill, with the advancement of weapon potency and technology, for the future not only of the family of man but of all the life systems on Earth. Some say poetry should be apolitical, should not denigrate the purity of its art for ephemeral causes. I say poetry is fast approaching moribund if it contents itself to sing of a flower while withholding its outrage before the despoiling of the flower of Earth.