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In the United States, there is such a great project as“The Dean Echenberg War Poetry Collection”. According to its self-introduction, it consists of war poetry written by men,women and children of all nationalities, languages and conflicts, who have experienced war and then wrote about their experiences in the form of poetry. The collection began in the 1960's and currently consist of over 6,500 volumes, spanning the time from the first appearance of the written word to the present day, from the war poetry of the Sumerians to the war poetry arising from nearby conflicts in the Middle East, including related anthologies,manuscripts, biographies, bibliographies, links to online resources, critical examinations,reviews and etc. It is a living collection that continues to grow with the addition not only of published texts but also with links to important online war poetry resources. Dean Echenberg was a flight surgeon during the Vietnam War who later became the director of disease control for the City of San Francisco during the first years of the AIDS crisis.
In the United Kingdom, The War Poets Association (WPA) is engaged in war poets of all periods and nationalities, with a primary focus on conflicts since 1914: mainly the First World War, Spanish War 1936—1939, the Second World War and wars in Ireland. There are already many societies dedicated to individual war poets; one of the WPA's aims is to work with these and others to help promote joint activities and events of mutual interest.
One of the most important global movements is the“War and Worldwide Action to Stop Wars”. Poets have their special missions and responsibilities. The Global Movement of Poets is as such:“Poets against the War”that erupted in February 2003, protested the invasion of Iraq by the Bush administration. Within a few weeks, the movement ballooned into an international phenomenon, with over 13,000 poets submitting their poetry to the web site to protest the war. The movement inspired the 2004 documentary film Voices in Wartime , and then the Voices Education Project, with its mission to amplify the voices of veterans and civilian witnesses to war, in order to heal the wounds of war and lay the basis for a more peaceful world. Andrew Himes was co-founder of“Poets Against the War”(with Sam Hamill and Emily Warn), executive producer of Voices in Wartime , and founder of Voices , which has now become the education program of the Charter for Compassion.
Voices in Wartime began in 2004 as a feature-length documentary that sharply etches the experience of war through powerful images and the words of poets-unknown and world-famous. Soldiers, journalists, historians and experts on combat interviewed in“Voices in Wartime”add diverse perspectives on war's effects on soldiers, civilians and society. In Voices in Wartime , poets around the world, from the United States and Colombia to Britain and Nigeria, to Iraq and India, share their views and experiences of war that extend beyond national borders and into the depth of the human soul. The film and its curricula are now a project of“The Charter for Compassion”.
As history has already loomed into the new millennium, technological advancements,particularly in military technology, have developed more powerful ways to massacre millions of people and even wipe out the whole humanity. The rapidly increasingly destructive consequences of modern warfare has apparently brought a hideous pattern of terror over a long time, while Albert Einstein once stated with a particular concern for the consequences and costs of the newly developed atom bomb:“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”Should humanity have a desire to survive, it calls for the poets or all artists' mission to“stop all wars”.
Contemporary studies of war poetry multiplied together with the atmosphere that studies of wars exploded. Anti-war voices and activities are loud enough to be heard all over the globe.It is under this“significant”context that the present critical anthology wishes to take a part.