It was on February 24, 2003, that Salt (Cambridge, UK) published the printed version of Nthposition's oft-imitated, never-bettered "100 Poets Against The War" series of electronic anthologies - making it the fastest ever poetry book, in terms of conception, to writing, to editing, to publishing (less than a month). It was described as "the 21st century's most controversial and talked about e-book".Val Stevenson's www.nthposition.com pioneered the use of the Internet for copy-left publishing, and political activism, and the whole world took notice, with The Times reporting 250,000 downloads of our e-books in 3 weeks alone. The Guardian described it as "a remarkable anthology" and The Times said it was "a new lease of life for protest poetry".
The books are still available for download at Nthposition, or at www.amazon.com from Salt.
Three years later, the illegal war's consequences are still being felt, and Tony Blair's spin doctor, Alistair Campbell, has admitted, in an essay for AOL, that he and Blair are computer-illiterate neanderthals who had never used email or the Internet at that time. No wonder the Labour government so tragically missed the message.
But how did they miss the millions marching in the streets?
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