<< A number of Stephen Kampa’s recent poems dare to look straight at our culture’s complacency about gun violence, and especially our inability to protect children’s lives. Kampa’s poem “PSA for the NRA” (that is, Public Service Announcement for the National Rifle Association) is a seamless work of craftsmanship, a single-sentence poem with just two rhyme sounds employed over four tercets. The poet’s technical mastery only underscores the skill of the Viking hero called the “children’s man”—saluted by his culture for a rare choice not to slaughter children. >> — Mary Jo Salter
PSA for the NRA
The sagas tell of one man known as ‘the children’s man’. . .
—Peter Ackroyd
And lastly, let us glance
At a medieval tale
In which the hero’s stance,
Not his war-warped stunts,
Will tell us how to feel.
A Viking warrior once
Was called “the children’s man”
When, for the commonweal,
He broke ranks with his clan,
Spearheading this advance:
He chose not to impale
Children on his lance.