When I first read and heard of Poems from Guantanamo, I thought it may have been  way for curator Marc Falkoff to gain some publicity and make a name for himself.  It would draw international attention, generate a huge discussion amongst the media, extremists and general population while making a historical and precedent setting situation.

But then I though about the other impacts and components of this book.

The phrase, the pen is mightier than the sword comes to mind.  Some of the prisoners who wrote poems were violent criminals who performed terrorist attacks against the United States of America and their own race. By using poetry they are able to take their anger/ hatred and use it to accuse the military and America.  In a sense they victimize themselves through their words which leads people to sympathize with them and work to help them.  words have been used very effectively in the past to create social change, start revolutions and change laws.  Maybe the prisoners cannot be active members in their home countries terrorist/ protest groups but they can have an impact in some small way with these poems.

Now this is not to say all the poets in this book are rightfully imprisoned and were active terrorists. Just as the previous group used their anger to accuse America in protest of their detainment, the innocent internees may do the same but not in hopes of continuing their terrorist ideology but as a way to focus their anger.  It can be a form of therapy, a way to hash out their emotions and inner pain and conflict because I assume they don’t have therapists in Guantanamo. Maybe it leads to an easier experience for both the soldiers and the inmates when they are able to heal in a small way.  This method, if put into an experiment  and proven, could provide a good way for other jails to aid in peacefully pacifying their inmates.

These poems also demonstrate our basic human need to express ourselves.  Whether it’s preteens railing against their parents idea of social norms to demonstrate their ‘independence’ and show how ‘grown up’ they are, or T.V./ Movie characters forced into uniforms who in a staggering plotline stylishly change their standardized outfit into something you would see in Vogue, we all want to be recognized as unique and different (without being too different to warrant the wrong type of attention).  The way people do so is personal, either by singing, writing a story or acting out a monologue; the detainees chose an expression that was not only personal but spiritually uplifting.  This link to their beliefs and religion may provide them some devotional time while they are not allowed the Qur’an or their chosen Holy Book.  Their beliefs are major part of their identity and may be a cardinal reason they are at Guantanamo. Without being able to express that part of themselves they lose even more of their humanity than the soldiers can take from them.

While I may never know if the curation of the poems were selfishly motivated or not, they do serve a valuable purpose. They provide hope for the detainees and a unique insight for the rest of the world.

Falkoff, Marc. Poems from Guantanamo. U of Iowa, 2007. Print.

Poetry has always been something that confused me and interested me. A good poem can make you laugh, cry or make you snap your fingers until they’re raw. The power of poetry and all its forms are showcased in many important events such as the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics or in the aftermath of tragedies such as World War II or 9/11.

While reading Juliana Spahr’s collection of poems in This Connection of Everyone with Lungs, I was drawn in by the rhythmic trance of the first poem, but after reading the second series of poems I began to think this connection was more about her and her small circle of people and not the connection with everyone. Then I began to question why she speaks so knowledgably about events in North Korea, Gaza, and France, yet she doesn’t detail the events of 9/11. In a book that frames itself around the events of 9/11 and what happens after, I thought there would be a bit more of an emphasis on the main event.

Then I remembered the story of my friend.

A prolific spoken word poet, she is making a name for herself in the Vancouver scene and was asked to write a poem for an organization that helps the families and victims of eating disorders. She was tasked with writing a poem that would be presented at the annual celebration dinner/ fundraiser that would impact the survivors and their families while making the sponsors see the positives of the organization. She spent a couple months perfecting the poem until it had a perfect ratio between emotional and funny. She submitted it to the head organizer and only a few hours later was told that the poem just wouldn’t do and she would have to write another one. Apparently the poem contained a few things that could trigger the recoverees and their families. The poem they wanted needed to be only about the positives and looking up. So she went back at it and wrote a poem that didn’t divulge into the details of the suffering of the victims and ended up with a poem that was all sunshine and daisies.

Now, I’m not saying that the poem shouldn’t have been positive, I’m saying sometimes you need the details in order to understand properly. While my friend’s original poem brought the listeners through the suffering and then emerged into the positive, the new poem just left the listeners with a falsified image of what eating disorders can be like with no details which shed light on the harmful effects of eating disorders. The organization was too cautious of the details which could have triggered people, which is similar to what I think may have happened in Spahr’s poem.

In ASTU while reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close we talked about the limited knowledge that was released following 9/11 and the sensory that occurred. People don’t want to talk about something so horrible because they don’t know how others will react and they don’t want to do something that may lead to negative consequences. In the case of Spahr’s poems we can see that if she wrote only of 9/11, she would lose a certain demographic, she would have complaints written since she wasn’t that and she couldn’t understand and she would lose sales. By using it as a basis, she gains attention because it is seen as controversial but since it isn’t once read, it gains the market. Maybe I am being too cynical by seeing it more as a marketing scheme to sell her book and raise the profile of her poetry and its style.

This ‘connection of everyone with lungs’ is proven in her poems; there are bad events happening everywhere, we all have beds, we all have skin, we all breathe the same air, etc. The only thing that mystifies me is her use of 9/11 as the frame. It may be the misleading which has dampened my liking for these poems but when there isn’t much being said about 9/11, I believe this book of poems had the ability to really connect with people emotionally about the events. Poems are powerful and we wouldn’t have poems like In Flanders Fields if people don’t just write what needs to be expressed. Maybe by expressing and having something like a poem based on the events, the emotional connection could help in the healing of the victims of 9/11.

How are we supposed to remember what happened in our history if no one cares to write about the details in fear of offending someone?

Cited:

Safran Foer, Jonathan. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. New York: First Mariner, 2005. Print.

Spahr, Juliana. This Connection of Everyone with Lungs. Los Angeles: U of California, 2005. Print.