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 commiting any hostile act against the United States or its allies. In hundreds of cases, even the circumstances of their initial detainment are questionable. – from Poems from Guantánamo: the Detainees Speak, edited by Marc Falkoff
Poems from Guantánamo: the Detainees Speak, edited by Marc Falkoff (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2007)
Marc Falkoff, professor and pro bono attorney for seventeen Guantánamo prisoners, has collected, with the help of other attorneys, twenty-two poems by seventeen detainees, some “originally written in toothpaste, others scratched onto foam drinking cups with pebbles.” Once collected, publication came slowly, as each line had to be scrutinized by the Pentagon. The voices finally freed in this spare volume tell of atrocities, fears, anger, puzzlement, courage, survival, and, sometimes, a thin thread of hope. “Perhaps,” Marc Falkoff hopes, “their poems will prick the conscience of a nation.”
From “Is it True?”
By Osama Abu kabir
Is it true that the grass grows after rain?
Is it true that flowers will rise up in the Spring?
Is it true that the salmon swim back up their streams?
It is true. This is true. These are miracles.
But is it true that one day we’ll leave Guantánamo Bay?
Is it true that one day we’ll go back to our homes?
I sail in my dreams, I am dreaming of home.