In the hot, stale air of Lamont library's fifth floor, a battle rages.

It's strange place for a war. Bodies slump insensibly in overstuffed chairs. A peach rots silently in a wastebasket--forbidden fruit, barely tasted.

Here lives the "poetry board," a field of blue construction paper pricked by pin-sized holes, fluttering with an army of white paper banners. This is the battleground itself, a place where writers tack up their poems, and critics tear them down-figuratively, never literally--or offer advice. The warriors: anonymous scribblers. The shot: a verse like this one, by a mysterious poet, "Tokio Rose":

Dirty

Holding her,

Like a moaning bowling ball,

Fingers

In her cunt and asshole

It's such a thin wall of flesh between the two,

Like good and evil.

And if he really sticks his index finger up there

Far enough,

He can just barely feel

The shit she's holding back.

Yes, I guess sex can get dirty,