The Poems of Guantanamo

[packbat]

jfs posted about this yesterday, I'm passing it on.

Did you know that they banned poetry in Guantánamo? It is true. Prisoners did not even receive writing implementia – the only means they had to produce this was scratching on styrofoam cups with rocks. And whenever those cups, furtively passed from prisoner to prisoner, were found, the guards would smash them to prevent any 'coded messages' from escaping. Nevertheless, a few have.

The article from the Independent includes three of the poems. jfs (and the writers of the article) quote four lines from one of them, "Humiliated In The Shackles" by Sami al Hajj:

They have monuments to liberty
And freedom of opinion, which is well and good.
But I explained to them that
Architecture is not justice.

Heaven forfend such a message should reach our enemies.