On September 21, 2017, the International Relations students of the National Management School observed International Peace Day. The day began with an academic discussion on peace and peace-building, including the role of women as peace-builders. As part of this discussion, they wrote acrostic poems drawing on what they had read and learnt in class. Then, … More #PeaceDay2017: A Classroom Celebration
Weaving the Tapestry of Dissent A quilt. A comfort furnishing, something you can snuggle in, and feel secure in its enveloping warmth, like a father’s hug. Ironic then, that a type of quilt was the epicentre of a resistance movement in Chile in response to the disappearance of scores of fathers, brothers and sons (not … More Champions of Peace: Chilean Arperillas
Wash off each molecule of despair By Chintan Girish Modi It was October 2016 when I received a beautifully written email from Swarna Rajagopalan, Founding Trustee of Prajnya Trust, inviting me to participate in a roundtable discussion titled ‘Gender, Peace and Intersectionalities: A New Generation Works for Peace’. Scheduled for January 23, 2017, this … More Wash off each molecule of despair, a guest post by Chintan Girish Modi
A classic from Robert Frost on the futility of walls of any sort, pertinent at a time when we discuss not whether there should be a wall but who will pay for it. The Mending Wall by Robert Frost Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills … More #PoemsforPeace: The Mending Wall, by Robert Frost
Give Me Only Peace by Louisa Lawson Rank with all its dower, Pomp with all its train, Wealth with all its power, Give I these again. Race with all its story, Place with all its ease, Fame with all its glory, Give I also these. Ask I for them? Never! Let their mem’ry cease. Take … More #PoemsforPeace: Give me only peace, by Louisa Lawson
Peace is part of everyday exchanges for most communities in this region, either in prayer or in greeting or as a practice. In presentations on war and peace, Prajnya’s Swarna Rajagopalan regularly uses the translation of these standard shlokas to illustrate inclusive imaginings of peace. Share your favourite prayer for peace with us: peace.prajnya@gmail.com. SarveshaamSwastirbhavatu | … More #PoemsforPeace: Prayers for Peace
This poem captured for thousands the tragedy of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015-16. Home by Warshan Shire no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark you only run for the border when you see the whole city running as well your neighbors running faster than you breath bloody in their … More #PoemsforPeace: Home, by Warsan Shire
You cannot keep your small domestic peace Your little pool of undeveloped love, While the neglected, starved, unmothered world Struggles and fights for lack of mother’s care, And its tempestuous, bitter, broken life Beats in upon you in your selfish homes. This poem addresses women who are content to be absorbed by only the details … More #PoemsforPeace: To the Indifferent Women, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Making Peace by Denise Levertov A voice from the dark called out, ‘The poets must give us imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar imagination of disaster. Peace, not only the absence of war.’ But peace, like a poem, is not there ahead of itself, can’t be imagined before it is made, can’t be … More #PoemsforPeace: Making Peace, by Denise Levertov
“We need poets to reawaken us to the ways in which our way of life may be contributing to conflicts at home and abroad… To compose poetry that’s at once large and small enough to make those connections—deeply global and yet scaled locally—is no easy task. Yet I can’t imagine how we can do without … More Poetry and peace (#PoemsforPeace)
