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| Terror Networks |
| Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak |
| 2007-08-09 |
| Available on Amazon. $11.16 Review: "At last Guantanamo has found its voice."--Gore Vidal And thank God for that, Gore. Why not have one released to your custody. Kinda do the Jack Henry Abbot thing. One up that drunken showboat Mailer... "Poetry, art of the human voice, helps turn us toward what we should or must not ignore. Speaking as they can across barriers actual and figurative, translated into our American tongue, these voices in confinement implicitly call us to our principles and to our humanity. They deserve, above all, not admiration or belief or sympathy-but attention. Attention to them is urgent for us."-Robert Pinsky Thanks, Bob. Who are you, by the way? "Poems from Guantanamo brings to light figures of concrete, individual humanity,against the fabric of cruelty woven by the 'war on terror.' The poems and poets' biographies reveal one dimension of this officially obscured narrative, from the perspective of the sufferers; the legal and literary essays provide the context which has produced--under atrocious circumstances--a poetics of human dignity."--Adrienne Rich The biggest thing since "Images" by Tyrone Green... Book Description: Since 2002, at least 775 men have been held in the U.S. detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. According to Department of Defense data, fewer than half of them are accused of committing any hostile act against the United States or its allies. In hundreds of cases, even the circumstances of their initial detainment are questionable. Wow. Sounds just like what they did to "The A-Team"... This collection gives voice to the men held at Guantánamo. Available only because of the tireless efforts of pro bono attorneys who submitted each line to Pentagon scrutiny, Poems from Guantánamo brings together twenty-two poems by seventeen detainees, most still at Guantánamo, in legal limbo. Got a job for you, Johnson. Aw, shit, sarge. Ain't this cruel and unusual punishment? If, in the words of Audre Lorde, poetry “forms the quality of light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change,” these verses—some originally written in toothpaste, others scratched onto foam drinking cups with pebbles and furtively handed to attorneys—are the most basic form of the art. Written in toothpaste? Scratched on styrofoam cups with a pebble? Any chance this could be, y'know, bullshit? Death Poem by Jumah al Dossari Take my blood. Take my death shroud and The remnants of my body. Take photographs of my corpse at the grave, lonely. Send them to the world, To the judges and To the people of conscience, Send them to the principled men and the fair-minded. And let them bear the guilty burden before the world, Of this innocent soul. Let them bear the burden before their children and before history, Of this wasted, sinless soul, Of this soul which has suffered at the hands of the "protectors or peace." BANG... Jumah al Dossari is a thirty-three-year old Bahraini who has been held at Guantanamo Bay for more than five years. He has been in solitary confinement since the end of 2003 and, according to the U.S. military, has tried to kill himself twelve times while in custody. Keep tryin, kid. Nobody likes a quitter... |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #13 Only 17 poets out of 775 detainees? Clearly we have not oppressed them enough. |
| Posted by: Darrell 2007-08-09 20:40 |
| #12 I wish, I wish in vain, I wish I were a jihadi again, But a jihadi I ner will be, till my pro bono lawyer gets my sorry ass out of Camp Dee. |
| Posted by: Phil_B 2007-08-09 20:37 |
| #11 As Galway Kinnell once observed (when I was a student) about e.e. cumming's poem "Private Olaf" when the protaginist swore: "this is some shit I will not eat", that it mean't there was some shit he would eat. We just have to eat this shit from the left or we can avoid it. I prefer that we don't even publish it. |
| Posted by: Jack is Back! 2007-08-09 20:25 |
| #10 HowlKoo for U Time time time time time Time time time time time time time Never Ending WOOF! |
| Posted by: Rink A Dink Dink 2007-08-09 17:19 |
| #9 They somehow omitted this one: Roses are red. Violets are blue. You're in Club Gitmo. No Virgins for you. |
| Posted by: doc 2007-08-09 16:52 |
| #8 From an old Pashtun proverb: A woman for business, a boy for pleasure and a goat by choice. |
| Posted by: JohnnieBartlett 2007-08-09 16:19 |
| #7 I missed this part... About the Author Marc Falkoff is an assistant professor at the Northern Illinois University College of Law and attorney for seventeen Guantánamo prisoners. Wow. Nuthin but the best for the Gitmo boys. An assistant professor. No wonder they're still inside Flagg Miller is a linguistic and cultural anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Whatever that is... Ariel Dorfman is a Chilean American poet, novelist, playwright, and human rights activist who holds the Walter Hines Page Chair of Literature and Latin American Studies at Duke University. I wonder if he/she was a member of the Group of 88? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-08-09 15:13 |
| #6 LOL. You guys write your own book and we'll see who sells more copies. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2007-08-09 14:54 |
| #5 Lets see, wasn't it Oscar Wilde who said something about "The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible?" (He was talking about upper crust types hunting foxes in England This is the bloodless (lawyers and academics) trying to humanize the inhuman (jihadists) Pah! |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2007-08-09 14:34 |
| #4 There once was a boy from Riyadh Who embarked on the path of jihad But they put him away At Guantanamo Bay "Curse Allah, it seems I've been had!" |
| Posted by: Mike 2007-08-09 13:34 |
| #3 From an old Pashtun poem Zakmi Dil (Wounded Heart) by Khushal Khan Khattak: There is a boy across the river with a bottom like a peach alas I cannot swim... |
| Posted by: john frum 2007-08-09 12:31 |
| #2 There once was a goat from Khandahar Who thought that I was a star Bleet bleet said she You can now let me free But her fur was barely above par... |
| Posted by: Detainee 1234567 2007-08-09 12:28 |
| #1 Saying "Bismillah" while sawing off infidel heads is the ultimate Islamic poetry. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-08-09 11:29 |