Global anthology launched on National Poetry Day to benefit the Red Cross.

Many of the poets involved contributed to '100 Poets against the War', which the London Times said gave protest poetry "a new lease of life". The first edition went online in January 2003, a week after the idea was floated. Two further online editions and a print edition followed. Readers were encouraged to host the PDF on their sites or forward it to friends, and tens of thousands of copies were downloaded from nthposition alone. Val Stevenson, the site's editor, said: "The success of 100 poets blew us away, but we're being more ambitious this time. It's hard to think of an organisation that's doing more to help the desperately needy than Red Cross." Todd Swift, the poetry editor, agreed: "Auden said that 'poetry makes nothing happen', but we think it can, and we'd like to prove it." Like 100 Poets, Babylon Burning will rely on readers to spread the word – the site is completely unfunded.

Contributors to 'Babylon Burning' are: Ros Barber, Jim Bennett, Rachel Bentham, Charles Bernstein, bill bissett, Yvonne Blomer, Stephanie Bolster, Jenna Butler, Jason Camlot, J R Carpenter, Jared Carter, Patrick Chapman, Sampurna Chattarji, Maxine Chernoff, Tom Chivers, Alfred Corn, Tim Cumming, Margot Douaihy, Ken Edwards, Adam Elgar, Elaine Feinstein, Peter Finch, Philip Fried, Leah Fritz, Richard Garcia, Sandra M Gilbert, Nathan Hamilton, Richard Harrison, Kevin Higgins, Will Holloway, Bob Holman, Paul Hoover, Ray Hsu, Halvard Johnson, Chris Jones, Jill Jones, Kavita Joshi, Jonathan Kaplansky, Wednesday Kennedy, Sonnet L’Abbé, Kasandra Larsen, Tony Lewis-Jones, Dave Lordan, Alexis Lykiard, Jeffrey Mackie, Mike Marqusee, Chris McCabe, Nigel McLoughlin, Pauline Michel, Peter Middleton, Adrian Mitchell, John Mole, David Morley, George Murray, Alistair Noon, D Nurkse, John Oughton, Ruth Padel, Richard Peabody, Tom Phillips, David Prater, Lisa Pasold, Victoria Ramsay, Harold Rhenisch, Noel Rooney, Joe Ross, Myra Schneider, Robert Sheppard, Zaid Shlah, Henry Shukman, Penelope Shuttle, John Siddique, Goran Simic, Hal Sirowitz, Heather Grace Stewart, Andrew Steinmetz, John Stiles, William E Stobb, jordan stone, Sean Street, Todd Swift, Joel Tan, Nathaniel Tarn, Mark Terrill, Helên Thomas, Vincent Tinguely, Rodrigo Toscano, John Tranter and John Welch. All gave their work for free.

Babylon Burning will be available from 5 October 2006 – National Poetry Day – from print on demand publisher Lulu at http://www.lulu.com/content/447370

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Notes: nthposition (www.nthposition.com) was shortlisted for the 2002 European Online Journalism Awards, nominated for a People's Voice award in the 2003 Webbys, and won a Readers' Poll award in the 2004 Utne Independent Press Awards. In 2005, the site was selected as Webby Worthy, and in 2006 it was archived into the British Library's permanent collection.
Todd Swift, 'Babylon Burning's editor, writes, edits and teaches poetry.