I don't usually read poetry for the most part, but an anthology published by University Of Iowa Press "Poems From Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak"2007) by Marc Falkoff an attorney for the detainees( which I suppose is a more "politically correct" phrase than prisoners) from the Centre For Constitutional Rights published some years back has got me thinking. Although critics have lauded the quality of the poems, other sources(such as Pentagon spokesman Commander Charles Gordon of the US Navy) have voiced concern that this anthology is "propaganda", all part of the Islamist "war against Western democracies" and even claimed that poetry can be used to pass coded messages to jihadists on the outside( this last is hypothetically true I suppose, but I for one suspect that the only secret revealed by the anthology is the unflattering depiction of the US Government( and its attendant agencies such as the military or CIA) made clear by the poets). Again "propaganda" is much like the definition of beauty- very much in the eye of the beholder. As for Commander Gordon, whatever the US Navy trains its officers to be, I don't think literary critic is one of them.
My advice is to go buy "Poems From Guantanamo"-it should make great reading esp over the Fourth of July weekend!
Terry
Log in to comment