four selections from
WOMEN ON WAR
edited by Daniela Gioseffi

DECLARATION OF LOVE
October, 1963, the Cuban Missile Crisis

by Carilda Oliver Labra (Cuba)

I ask if I'm wise
when I awaken
the danger between his thighs,
or if I'm wrong
when my kisses prepare only a trench
in his throat.

I know that war is probable;
especially today
because a red geranium has blossomed open.

Please, don't point your weapons
at the sky:
the sparrows are terrorized,
and it's springtime,
it's raining, the meadows are ruminating.
Please,
you'll melt the moon, only night light of the poor.

It's not that I'm afraid,
or a coward,
I'd do everything for my homeland;
but don't argue so much over your nuclear missiles,
because something horrible is happening:
and I haven't had time enough to love.
 

Carilda Oliver Labra (b. 1922) is a premier poet of Cuba and one of the island's first feminist poets to champion woman's right to an erotic life without the constraints of Catholicism. Her work has been widely translated and recognized throughout Europe, especially in Spain.
—Translated by Daniela Gioseffi with Enildo A. Garcia
 

A NEW DAWN IN TOWN

by Flora Brovina (Albanian Kosovo)
 

The streets are stirring early.
All's quiet in town.
I observe the silent steps of a new beginning.
People pass, walking to somewhere,
Optimism on their lips offering
a greeting of "good morning."

Their footsteps ring on the washed sidewalks
Like factory mallets or typewriters.
The morning passes briskly.
The streets have awakened early.
There's the newspaper editor,
There the shoe-shine man, the milk man:
Passersby, simply walking, walking some place,
And a woman with a baby in her arms.
 

Flora Brovina (b. 1949) is an Albanian poet, doctor, and peace activist of Kosovo who spent time in a Serbian jail for helping to organize women's peace demonstrations.
—Translation adapted by Daniela Gioseffi

LAMENT TO THE SPIRIT OF WAR

by Enheduanna (Sumeria)
 

You hack everything down in battle....
God of War, with your fierce wings
you slice away the land and charge
disguised as a raging storm,
growl as a roaring hurricane,
yell like a tempest yells,
thunder, rage, roar, and drum,
expel evil winds!
Your feet are filled with anxiety!
On your lyre of moans
I hear your loud dirge scream.

Like a fiery monster you fill the land with poison.
As thunder you growl over the earth,
trees and bushes collapse before you.
You are blood rushing down a mountain,
Spirit of hate, greed and anger,
dominator of heaven and earth!
Your fire wafts over our land,
riding on a beast,
with indomitable commands,
you decide all fate.
You triumph over all our rites.
Who can explain why you go on so?
 

Enheduanna (c. 2300 B.C) was a Sumerian priestess, and the first known poet, male or female, of prehistory. Her work reminds us of how long man has warred in folly.
—Freely adapted and translated by Daniela Gioseffi

THE FIRST LONG-RANGE
ARTILLERY FIRE OVER LENINGRAD

by Anna Akhmatova (Russia)
 

A tinctured crowd streaked about,
and suddenly all was totally changed.
It wasn't the usual city racket.
It came from a strange land.
True, it was akin to some random claps of thunder,
but natural thunder heralds the wetness of fresh water
high clouds
to quench the thirst of fields gone dry and parched,
a messenger of blessed rain--
but this was as dry as hell must be.
My distraught wits refused
to believe it, because of the insane
suddenness with which it sounded, swelled and hit,
and how casually it came
to murder my child.
 

Anna Akhmatova (l889-l966) is one of the best known and loved of Russian poets of this century. She was silenced as a poet for eighteen years during the reign of Stalin.
—Translated and adapted by Daniela Gioseffi

WOMEN ON WAR
edited and with an introduction by Daniela Gioseffi

This anthology won an American Book Award upon its first publication in 1990. It has just been reissued by The Feminist Press. 384 pages paperback, $19.95

Daniela Gioseffi, peace activist and educator, has been publishing poetry, fiction and reviews in mainstream magazines and presses since the 1960's. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, Antaeus, Choice, The Nation, Poetry East, Prairie Schooner and others. She has published three books of poetry, a novel, and a  volume of short fiction.

Daniela has appeared on "All Things Considered" and "Weekend Edition" of National Public Radio, promoting peace and a radio program based on her book WOMEN ON WAR, was created by the SANE Education Fund (now Peace Action Education Fund) and distributed to Public Radio stations around the country in late 1980's.