U.S. first lady Laura Bush has cancelled a Feb. 12 poetry symposium at the White House after learning the poets planned to read verses opposing war with Iraq. It would, an aide said, "be inappropriate to turn a literary event into a political forum."

When poets trade in politics,
Said Laura Bush, they play the knave.
They get up to all kinds of tricks
And can't be trusted to behave.
They pitch their voices at a roar.
They disrespect their host's intent.
They churn out lines opposing war
And cause us all embarrassment.
That's why, she said, I've pulled the plug.
There will be no symposium
On poetry. They pulled the rug
From under my Elysium
And I, in turn, will not be made
To suffer while some poet stuffs
His poem with a cannonade
Opposing global fisticuffs.
I want my poetry benign.
I don't want versus. I want verse,
And that is where I draw the line.
They say war's hell, but protest's worse.