Statement for Peace

To the Editors:

NYR readers may be interested in the following statement, issued in Key West, Florida.

Judith Kazantzis
Carolyn Forché
Irving Weinman

STATEMENT FOR PEACE

We the poets and writers of the 21st Key West Literary Seminar urge the United States administration not to engage in an aggressive first strike against Iraq. Such a war would be unjust and result in the murder of innocents. We further urge the United States administration to work toward the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, because only this will generate justice in the Middle East and stability in the world.

Derek Walcott, Nobel Prize for Literature
Richard Wilbur, former US Poet Laureate, Pulitzer Prize winner
Billy Collins, US Poet Laureate
Lucille Clifton, Chancellor, Academy of American Poets
John Ashbery, Pulitzer Prize winner, Gold Medal for Poetry
Robert Creeley, Chancellor, Academy of American Poets
Charles Simic, Pulitzer Prize winner
James Tate, Pulitzer Prize winner
Alison Lurie, Pulitzer Prize winner
and forty-one other writers and artists