Speak Out: A publication to Document and Express the Artistic Side of the 21st Century Anti-War Movement is a collaborative effort of the Madison Area Peace Coalition (MAPC) and Premiere Generation Ink. MAPC and PGI first linked energies when the MAPC arts committee decided to put together a poetry publication that would offer a creative venue for the commentary at the new (post 9/11) antiwar movement. What you hold in your hands is the result of much planning and love of both groups.

Our goal with this publication is to include younger and often neglected voices alongside more seasoned and practiced poets - those who long time peace activist and MAPC member Allen Ruff calls our "usual suspects". The problem with leaving the usual suspects to do all of the expressing for the rest of us is they simply cannot express it all. The publication hopes not just to fill the gaps, but to join the well-traveled highways of art as an answer against war, as well as the margins sometimes overlooked in the journey. And so it is that our journal ranges from the profoundly insightful and direct words of Ellen A.F. Harrer (pen name Alexis Ford) age 12, of Sister Bay, WI to the nationally recognizable and now Madison-based graphics of Chas Sippel. Locally better known poets include Eric Rossborough and Miriam Hall. The process of soliciting for, then assembly of, a publication of this range is as arduous as one would expect. Our lives were transformed for one whole weekend were mishap-filled: trying to make Macs and PCs communicate with one another, many visits to Kinko's trying to reformat disks, overtaking Mifflin Street Co-op's offices, and finally, working together to promote the publication through an April 27th event of the same name at Electric Earth Cafe in Madison. But in the end, that which challenges us also deeply rewards us, and we are proud to bring you a publication filled with many different perspectives, feelings, calls to actions and artistic voices from such a wide range.

We thank you for your support of both MAPC and PGI through the purchase of this publication, as well as further attentiveness to the daily efforts of both art, and peace, to find niches in which we can just survive but thrive together. We look forward to further productions similar to this, and hope you do as well.