Peace like War is Waged

A Discussion and Reading with Jan Barry and W.D. Ehrhart

Thursday, November 13th @ 5:30pm

Live Poetry @ Central Free Library, 1901 Vine Street, History Department on 2nd Floor

“One Jan Barry’s most characteristic beliefs comes from a poem called “The Peacemaker” by Walker Knight: “Peace, like war, is waged.” Jan Barry has been actively and energetically waging peace since he turned away from an appointment to the US Military Academy and chose a very different path into his own future.

All through the book, I encounter over and over again Jan’s refusal to give in to despair, his unwavering belief that good will eventually come of good-willed people acting together. He challenges Americans to protest and resist the agenda of the “tyrannical head of state” now occupying the White House. He urges all of us to vigorously and actively support federal employees, LGBTQ rights, immigrant rights, Palestinian self-determination, and a free and independent Ukraine.

Here, in a few words, is what Jan Barry taught me: take that rage and pain and frustration and do something constructive with it.” – W. D. Ehrhart

Waging Peace: From Vietnam to Volgograd ($30.00 – 2025) is a collection of essays, poetry and art by Jan Barry, a Veterans For Peace Poet Laureate and cofounder of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The memoir conveys memorable stories about the transformation of soldiers in war zones into communities of peace activists. Jan Barry is the author of Waging Art: Tackling Grief and Trauma with Creative Arts, among other works.

Smart Fish Don’t Bite ($22.00 – 2025) by W. D. Ehrhart, a Marine Corps veteran of both the Vietnam War and Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The author of multiple books of both prose and poetry, including Vietnam-Perkasie: a Combat Marine Memoir, and Thank You for Your Service: Collected Poems. As the poems in this most recent collection demonstrate, he is a writer who fought in Vietnam, not a Vietnam writer.