Those first-nights when I see my charge’s panic,
And, in quick whispers, slip him mislaid lines,
Untangled recognition scenes will light

Here The Nation presents a few of the works posted on "Poets Against the War," (www.poetsagainstthewar.org), the website set up by Sam Hamill, poet and editor, when he called for poems and statements against war in Iraq.

As if to move a flexible sphere from here
to there with unassisted head and foot
were natural and obvious. As if
a dance could always bow to resolute
constraint and never be danced the same way twice.
As if whistles and cheers, the hullabaloo
of fervent gazers were all the music needed
to keep its players’ goals in tune. So that
as they weave, dodge, collide, collapse in breathless
haystacks–and rise and fall and rise again–
we’re made, if not one, then at least whole.

Alfred Corn reviews Alison Lurie's Familiar Spirits.

Has anyone read John Dennis? Irving Babbitt? Gorham Munson? Probably not, though they were considered important critics in their day.