After Effects poetry by Judith Janoo In 1793 Benjamin Rush, a U.S. founding father and signer of the Declaration of Independence proposed the plan of a Peace-Office of the United States. In 1935 Senator Matthew M. Neely introduced the first bill calling for the creation of a United States Department of Peace. Similar bills have been introduced into the legislature—the latest: The Department of Peace Act of 2011, reintroduced in 2013. “By delving into the past in her new chapbook, After Effects, poet, Judith Janoo, brings the reader from the depths of despair, caused by war, into the hope for peace. ‘.…like the memory/you didn’t know/ what to do with….’ from her poem, ‘What You Passed On…’ The poet engages the reader with poetic empathy and visual reality. ‘….the suffering of a gentle/man made infantry man…’ then leads us generations forward to a peace march, where a granddaughter reminds us in the final poem, ‘Take to the Streets, February 15, 2003 ‘….it isn’t dangerous/to