Poems from Guantanamo

"Poems from Guantanamo, a collection of 22 poems by inmates at Guantanamo Bay prison, makes much of the idea of expression. “The detainees speak,” the book’s subtitle informs us. The book’s cover, meanwhile, carries this urgent endorsement from Gore Vidal: “At last Guantanamo has found its voice.” So, one naturally wonders: What is this “voice” saying?

The answer does not come immediately. In his introduction, Marc Falkoff, a defense attorney who has represented Guantanamo detainees and who compiled the poems, first attempts to set the book in political context. Falkoff explains that the poets, like “all the prisoners in Guantanamo,” are Muslims. The loaded implication is that bigotry is to blame for their detention. But given that global terrorism is today a primarily Islamic phenomenon, the skeptical reader may find himself unimpressed by the suggestion...

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