226 contemporary poetry
be stated that technology has offered important avenues for the dis-
semination of poetry on a global scale. In entering the twenty-fi rst
century, the possibilities inherent in a web-based dissemination
of poetry were realised with the creation of the e-book, 100 Poets
Against the War. The trilogy of chapbooks were fi rst published
online on 27 January 2003 as a response to the threat of entry into
a war against Iraq by both the UK and USA. The editor, Todd
Swift, explains that the anthology was timed to correspond with
the appearance of Hans Blix’s weapons inspections report to the
United Nations. As Swift adds, 100 Poets Against the War
may hold the record for being the fastest assembled global
anthology... Only the speed of the Internet, and the over-
whelmingly positive support of so many poets, who shared
the project with their colleagues and personal networks, could
have made it happen. These poets are from Ireland, Scotland,
Wales, England, Canada, Australia, India, France, America
and elsewhere; many are cultural and/or peace activists; some
are emerging poets, others very well-known.^45The anthology has been followed by French, German and Brazilian
versions, which denotes quite literally a global poetic dissemina-
tion. The introduction to the electronic version made it clear
that poetry could have agency and a power for change through
its circulation of protest. The readers of the original version were
encouraged ‘to spread the word about the 100 Poets Against the War
project – in your community, and beyond’. Technology and poetry
can thus make signifi cant interventions in the public sphere. The
Retort group from the San Francisco Bay Area, refl ecting upon the
subsequent global demonstrations against the Iraq war in February
2003 , concedes that:
One ingredient of the February dynamic was the appear-
ance on the world stage of something like a digital ‘multi-
tude’, a worldwide virtual community, assembled... in the
interstices of the net and that some of the intensity of the
moment derived from the actual experience of seeing – or
hearing, feeling, facing up to – an image of refusal become a
reality.^46