The Horror of War: A U.S. law professor representing Guantanamo prisoners compiled a book of poems by some of the detainees, to be published this month by University of Iowa Press and featuring a cover blurb by former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky. Among the verses, for example, by Sami al Haj, quoted in a June Wall Street Journal story: “When I heard the pigeons cooing in the trees / Hot tears covered my face” and “My soul is like a roiling sea, stirred by anguish / Violent with passion.” The U.S. military had to approve the text, citing the ease with which imagery could be used as coded messages to colleagues outside.
This article appears in Aug 22-28, 2007.