Poetry against all the odds

A handful of detainees at Guantánamo Bay have managed to give voice to their desperate situation, reports Sorcha Hamilton

At the Guantánamo Bay prison camp, poetry is a "security risk". The use of pens and paper is restricted for detainees, most of whom have been imprisoned without charge or trial. Any written material going into or coming from the detention centre must get clearance from the US authorities. Despite these odds, however, poetry has emerged from Guantánamo. Using toothpaste to write, or pebbles to scratch a few lines into the side of styrofoam cups, detainees have passed poetry from cell to cell. While most of this material is confiscated, destroyed or classified, a very small amount has found its way through the guards and been passed furtively to lawyers. This is now published in a collection offering a rare insight into the bleak legal limbo of the Guantánamo detainees.

Poems from Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak contains work from 17 out of approximately 775 detainees held at the camp, most of whom are routinely kept in solitary confinement. The book is being publicised by Amnesty International to mark the anniversary of Guantánamo, which has been open for six years this month. Marc Falkoff, the lawyer who collected and edited the collection, was forced to submit all of the material to the Pentagon, who scrutinised each line before allowing publication.

The collection gives voice to the lonely, tortured existence of the detainees, many of whom have experienced abuse, such as sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation and interrogation at gunpoint. While dozens have attempted suicide at the camp, three detainees have killed themselves, deaths that were described as "asymmetric warfare" by the US authorities. There have also been reports of the prisoners, who are all Muslims, being prevented from praying.

It is in these circumstances that many of the men have turned to poetry for some sort of solace. "Eid has come but my father has not," writes Mohammed el Gharani, a 14-year-old Chadian and one of the 29 juveniles held at the camp in violation of international law. El Gharani had hoped to study IT and English in Pakistan, where he was arrested and transferred to the US authorities.

"There must be day when we will get out," writes Siddiq Turkestani, who was captured and tortured by al-Qaeda, imprisoned by the Taliban and passed on to the US authorities. Turkestani was promised a quick release, but was held at Guantánamo until 2005.

Ode to the Sea and Is it True? describe how detainees yearn for home and contact with loved ones. While the few letters that make it past the authorities are heavily censored, the detainees are kept completely isolated from the outside world and, according to Falkoff, lawyers are banned from talking to them about current affairs.

With most of this work by first-time poets, the collection is a testament to the therapeutic value of poetry. In the afterword, Chilean author Ariel Dorfman finds parallels between the Guantánamo detainees, those held by the Pinochet regime in Chile and others currently in similar desperate circumstances who have "as a response to the worst abandonment, also used poetry to redeem their wounded dignity". Dorfman suggests that in the very reading of this poetry, we offer solidarity with the detainees: "Think that we have the chance to help them complete the journey they started in a cage inside a concentration camp, merely by something as simple as reading these poems."

"This book provides an opportunity for the detainees to raise their own voices and to be heard," says Kieran Clifford, Amnesty International campaigns manager. Amnesty has repeatedly called for the closure of Guantánamo, pointing out that almost one-third of the detainees have been cleared for release but still remain at the camp. "It is soul-destroying to read their stories and to think of all their families left behind," says Clifford. "But you can see that they are holding on to hope through this expression."

Poet Seamus Heaney has also paid tribute to the strength of the detainees and the value of their expression. "The very fact of this articulation constitutes a victory, a guarantee of the spirit's indomitable aspiration towards freedom and justice," he says.

Poems from Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak is available at Waterstones and Hodges Figgis and from Amnesty International (www.amnesty.ie)