Where have all the poets gone?

While the debate raged at the lunch counter on whether Elin Woods used a 50-degree or 56-degree wedge on her husband's car, President Obama sent another 30,000 American troops to Afghanistan, historic black hole of Western empires.

The fact is that we are at war and have been since 2003. Hollywood and to some degree, nonfiction writers have responded to this state of affairs, but, aside from the Sam Hamill-orchestrated Poets Against the War in that year, where have our poets, including the reticent Poet Laureate of the United States - quick, can you name her? (See answer below) - been?

I thought about this question the other night at a packed poetry reading. The audience of largely students showed up for free food (mostly) and a young poet whose work often addressed his failures at attracting women, the usual self-referential pablum. I suggest he call Tiger.

It could be that I was disappointed after reading some great poetry, "Satires of Circumstance" by Thomas Hardy, poems that presage the outbreak of World War I. The poems are in a remarkable book by Paul Fussell called "The Great War and Modern Memory (Sterling, $29.95).

It's the illustrated version of the book that won the National Book Award in 1975. Its observations on war are as relevant now as they were then, shortly after the Vietnam War ended. It's recommended reading in these days of ongoing conflict.

Answer: Kay Ryan