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“Poems from Guantánamo brings to light figures of concrete, individual humanity, against the fabric of cruelty woven by the ‘war on terror.’ The poems and poets’ biographies reveal one dimension of this officially obscured narrative, from the perspective of the sufferers; the legal and literary essays provide the context which has produced—under atrocious circumstances—a poetics of human dignity.”—Adrienne Rich

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.

If, in the words of Audre Lorde, poetry “forms the quality of light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change,” these verses—some originally written in toothpaste, others scratched onto foam drinking cups with pebbles and furtively handed to attorneys—are the most basic form of the art.

Death Poem

by Jumah al Dossari (mp3)

Take my blood.
Take my death shroud and
The remnants of my body.
Take photographs of my corpse at the grave, lonely.

Send them to the world,
To the judges and
To the people of conscience,
Send them to the principled men and the fair-minded.

And let them bear the guilty burden before the world,
Of this innocent soul.
Let them bear the burden before their children and before history,
Of this wasted, sinless soul,
Of this soul which has suffered at the hands of the “protectors of peace.”

Jumah al Dossari is a thirty-three-year-old Bahraini who has been held at Guantánamo Bay for more than five years. He has been in solitary confinement since the end of 2003 and, according to the U.S. military, has tried to kill himself twelve times while in custody.

Audio Files

Listen to poems:

pfg-01-intro-i-shall-not-complain.mp3

pfg-02-to-my-father.mp3

pfg-03-death-poem.mp3

pfg-04-two-fragments-cup-poems.mp3

pfg-05-is-it-true.mp3

Readings by Joan Kjaer and David Hamilton. Copyright 2007 University of ������������Press. All rights reserved.

Additional Resources and Information

The Wall Street Journal's feature on Poems from Guantánamo, please click .

The New York Times coverage, please click .

The Washington Post's coverage, please click .

National Public Radio's broadcast, please click .

This American Life's Peabody Award-winning report, "Habeas Schmabeas," please click .

PBS's Frontline, "Son of al Qaeda," please click .

The U.S. Navy, Guantánamo Base site, please click .

To learn more about The Road to Guantánamo film, please click .

The Center for Constitutional Rights, Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative, please click .

The National Guantánamo Coalition page, please click .

Joint Task Force, Guantánamo Bay, please click .

U.S. Department of Defense, Military Commissions Proceedings, Guantánamo Bay, please click .

BBC report, "Life in a Guantánamo Cell," please click .

Human Rights Watch, please click .

The Guantánamo Blog, by H. Candace Gorman, habeas attorney, please click .

Project Hamad, please click .

Timeline Theatre, "Guantánamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom," please click .

American Civil Liberties Union, please click .

ACLU directory of government documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act related to treatment of detainees, please click .

PEN American Center, please click .

American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, please click .

U.S. Department of State, Detainee Issues Archives, please click .

United Nations report on treatment of detainees, please click .

Seton Hall University School of Law, "Report on Guantánamo Detainees: A Profile of 517 Detainees through Department of Defense Data," please click .

Seton Hall University School of Law, "Second Report on the Guantánamo Detainees: Inter- and Intra-Departmental Disagreements about Who Is Our Enemy," please click .

International Committee of the Red Cross, "The ICRC's work at Guantánamo Bay," statement on confidential report on alleged abuse of detainees, made in response to New York Times report of treatment "tantamount to torture," please click .

International Committee of the Red Cross' work at Guantánamo Bay, please click .

UC Davis Human Rights Center, please click .

UC Davis Human Rights Center testimonials from Guantánamo Bay, please click .

410media's interactive review, please click .

Daily Kos story 1, please click .

Daily Kos story 2, please click .

Boston Globe's op-ed, please click .

Review from the Socialist Worker, please click .

Please check out what On The Media has to say .

To read Andy Worthington's article, please click .

To read Nth Position's article, please click .

To read about poetry that saves, please click .