Monday, September 15, 2008

Guantanamo poems

Poetry, "a form that people turn to naturally in moments of crisis," as Andrew Motion explained in a Guardian audio (December 13, 2007), was written from within the Guantanamo prison.  An anthology of poems was collected and edited as Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak by Marc Falkoff (University of Iowa Press, 2007).  

You can listen to some of the poems here.
Listen to NPR features about Guantanamo here.
Robert Pinsky felt that the value of the poems came from their urgency, see link.

Reviews of the book include:
Yochi J. Dreazen, "The Prison Poets of Guantanamo Find a Publisher," the Wall Street Journal (June 20, 2007)
in the Independent (June 21, 2007)
Dan Chiasson, "Notes on Prison Camp" New York Times (August 19, 2007) also printed as "Poems from Guantanamo: the Detainees Speak," IHT (August 17, 2007)
John Lundberg, "Poems from Guantanamo Bay," Huffington Post (March 16, 2008)