An 84-page anthology titled "Poems From Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak" will be published in August by the University of Iowa Press, giving readers an unusual glimpse into the emotional lives of the largely nameless and faceless prisoners there.
The University of Iowa Press is very proud of itself for providing a forum for the Gitmo headchoppers. As they describe their efforts:
“At last Guantánamo has found its voice.”—Gore Vidal
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.
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.
Isn't that just special? Remember not to question the patriotism of those responsible for this travesty.
Since the U of I Press has missed one of my favorite prisoner poems, I'll close with it:
Images
by Tyrone Green
Dark and lonely on a summer's night.
Kill my landlord. Kill my landlord.
Watchdog barking. Do he bite?
Kill my landlord. Kill my landlord.
Slip in his window. Break his neck.
Then his house I start to wreck.
Got no reason. What the heck?
Kill my landlord. Kill my landlord
C-I-L-L my land lord!
Hat tip: NewsBusters; Crossposted at The Dougout
Update, 6/21: Of course the Gitmo 750 have their work cut out for them if they are going to surpass or even equal the classic deep thoughts of Etheridge Knight: "Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane." Now if you don't think such lyrically work as: "Hard Rock / was / 'known not to take no shit From nobody,' and he had the scars to prove it...." is a meaningful, timeless expression of the human condition that just indicates how shallow you really are.
After all deep thinker H. Bruce Franklin at Rutgers has made "Hard Rock" required reading for his "Crime and Punishment in American Literature" course. Also included as required reading for this class are some of the works of the left's favorite cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. The "poetry" of the left's second favorite cop-killer (and favorite convicted terrorist?), Kathy Boudin is also an object of contemplation for America's future leaders in Franklin's course.
While academia has the resources to inflict this sort of stuff on undergraduates, there just isn't enough room at the table for a few military historians:
Students at Miami, Xavier and the University of Cincinnati can take courses on environmental history, gender in revolution, women's history and the history of race, sexuality, birth control, pop culture, movies - even "Animals in Colonial America." But in course catalogs, classes about the history of Valley Forge, Gettysburg and America's greatest battles are as scarce as Johnny Reb in a Yankee cemetery.
2 comments:
I want to hear the vice of Nick Berg.
No, that's not possible , is it? what I can hear is him screaming.
Nicholas Berg (April 2, 1978 – May 7, 2004) was an American businessman seeking telecommunications work in Iraq during the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. He was abducted and later beheaded in May 2004 by militants. The CIA claimed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi personally beheaded Berg.
Well as I said in my update, after "giving voice" to terrorists and cop-killers there just isn't enough time and money in academia to bother with American heroes or the victims of Jihad.
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