"An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all." — Oscar Wilde
PETRY IS DANGEROUS
A project by Karen Margolis and Thomas Schliesser, with David Schliesser
POETRY IS DANGEROUS began as a poem by Karen Margolis written in 2003 at the time of the Iraq war.
It developed into a protest against the Pentagon's censorship of a poetry book by Guantanamo Bay prisoners, and against kidnapping of terrorist suspects and the illegal detention of prisoners without trial in Guantanamo and other US security facilities.
With President Obama's decision in January 2009 to shut down Guantanamo and CIA prisons outside the US, the focus of POETRY IS DANGEROUS has shifted to look at the potential of poetry and art to inspire original thinking and change, and the suppression of poetry and art by governments that fear the power of creative ideas.
The first POETRY IS DANGEROUS exhibition was held 31 May-7 June 2008 in Berlin.
Writers, poets and artists from several countries showed poems or art works on the theme. The exhibition poster with the list of participants is shown below.
The second POETRY IS DANGEROUS exhibition will be held at the Fiery Tongues Poetry Festival, 30-31 May, 1 June 2009 (see: http://www.ruigoord.nl/ — festivals)
The third POETRY IS DANGEROUS exhibition is being planned for St. Petersburg in 2010.
Each exhibition varies depending on the venue and input of local artists and writers.
Special thanks to Eddie Woods for much original inspiration and encouragement, and to Hans Plomp (Amsterdam) and Dmitry Sokolenko (St. Petersburg) for their participation and support.
Karen Margolis Thomas Schliesser
q.margolis@googlemail.com thomas.schliesser@web.de
"POETRY PRESENTS A SPECIAL RISK …
BECAUSE OF ITS CONTENT AND FORMAT"
— The Pentagon
August 2007: New Book Compiles Gitmo Poems
A new poetry book has been released with some unlikely contributors. ‘Poems From Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak’ is a volume of poems written by prisoners at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. Guantanamo attorney and Northern Illinois law school professor Marc Falkoff helped compile the book.
Marc Falkoff: "The book is meant to humanize the men and it's meant to. I really provoke discussion in the U.S. about what Guantanamo is, what it's become, what it means for us as a country, to keep this lawless zone active."
The book is eighty-four pages. Military censors barred thousands of lines of poetry from being released.
Most of the poems, including a lament by Al Hela which first sparked
Falkoff's interest, are unlikely to ever see the light of day. Not content
with imprisoning the authors, the Pentagon has refused to declassify many of
their words, arguing that poetry 'presents a special risk' to national
security because of its 'content and format.' (italics added). In a memo sent on September 18, 2006, the team assigned to deal with communications between lawyers and their clients explains that they do not 'maintain the requisite subject matter expertise' and says that poems 'should continue to be considered presumptively classified.'
www.democracynow.org
15 August 2007
PETRY IS DANGEROUS
This is the new age of sobriety
sterile consensus and covert censorship:
state-funded poets sing praises to the status quo,
the aging avantgarde fades out
suffering cirrhosis of the liver
and raging existential despair;
correctness is preferred to inspiration
and the latest edition
of many a slim volume
with verses rhymed or free
is stamped on the spine
with a government warning:
POETRY CAN BE HARMFUL TO YOUR HEALTH
the small print beneath the capitals elucidates
the nature of the threat between the covers
Reading a poem can result in:
heavy breathing
accelerated heartbeat
churning guts
hot flushes and cold sweats
tingling toes & fingers
hair standing on end
pricked-up ears
moistened lips
dry mouth, chattering teeth
twitching nose, and
shivers down the spine
BEWARE! POETRY IS ALLURING
Shakespeare will grab you by the shoulder
the world’s a stage, he’s watching from the wings.
Malory will fire you with the spirit of chivalry
to join the quest for matchless purity.
Goethe will lure you into sweet temptation
sowing doubt in the depths of hungry souls.
With Chaucer you can take a pilgrimage
to the shrine of the white goddess,
or let Rimbaud steer you in a drunken boat
past rocks where sirens wail and wait for shipwrecks.
A wooden horse is Homer’s chosen vehicle
filled with impatient warriors in clashing armour.
a moonbeam on the white wing of a swan
lures you to read Euripides again
while Catullus promises a thousand kisses
and then a thousand more.
Byron invites you to brawl and womanise
with luscious orgies in ottava rima
spilling over to Sappho’s other shore.
Shelley submerges you in shades of immortality,
and Brecht, disturbing the dust of interrupted dreams
will slip a little book into your pocket
to read in the bus on the way to work.
WARNING: POETRY IS SUBVERSIVE
It can stir you to rebellion
turn you inside out
steal the pennies from your pockets
shower you with insights
irritate dictators
topple politicians
seduce ambassadors
foster bold conspiracies
make spies change sides
open innocent eyes to dark & dirty deals
expose the interlock of cog and wheel
put a spanner in the works
or forge the hammers to break our chains
breeding revolutions in basement kitchens.
WARNING: POETRY IS ALL-CONSUMING
Just one drop of this potent distillation
a shred of meaning, a casual half-rhyme
an oxymoron skilfully interwoven
a fleeting metaphor, a full-blown pentameter
can infiltrate the plastic mortal shell,
sound out buried wishes
drop a plumbline to the basic instincts
travel to the brain with lightning speed
& explode in highly-coloured flashes
sending splinters of intensity
through every artery, sweeping you along
with the flow of ancient mystery
to what they call the borders of insanity.
WARNING: POETRY IS CATCHING
When images reach out to bite you
or rhythms grab you by the throat
there’s nothing you can do —
too late, no anti-toxin can save you
from this insidious infection,
resistance is futile: so relax & enjoy it
surrender to the music of the word
passed down by the bards & troubadors of ages.
WARNING: POETRY IS INDESTRUCTIBLE
After many resurrections
following countless declarations of final demise:
now in the age of mechanical reproduction
alliteration, incantation & reprise
reclaim their audience appeal
defying electronic imagination
& minimal post-modernism.
WARNING: POETRY IS IRRESISTIBLE
when we were young we chased rhythms like butterflies
to catch our childhood fantasies
now we are grown but not immune:
in dark times we take comfort from remembered rhymes
and when our ship comes in
its hold is filled with treasures
from the troves of centuries —
words worked as precious jewels
in polished settings,
necklets of opalescent ballads
lapis lazuli and lustrous pearls
strung in shimmering phrases
heart-shaped rubies glowing with the blood of passion
emeralds flashing dragon eyes of jealousy
& jet-black pendants hanging in the moonless night,
while overhead a dome of many-coloured glass
casts light upon our beauty though our youth is gone.
WARNING: PETRY IS DANGEROUS
a toxic distillation of concentrate emotion
without the claims of politics or patent medicine
with no pretence to answers or conclusions
poetry can’t cause or cure
cancer AIDS malaria or pollution
can’t engineer immaculate conception
can’t put the snow back on the tip of Kilimanjaro
nor fill the Aral Sea’s cracked bed with water
-- can’t even make green vegetables taste better;
its strength resides in inutility
pointblank refusal of reality
its miracles are modest
its ambitions plain
its weapons wit & satire
its message clear
and therein lies the danger:
poetry is only love
of words; its source is human feeling.
Come to the spring, fill up the silvered chalice
drink deep, it tastes of nectar
the drug is in the dregs
and lingers on the tongue
like a delicate aperitif
awaking appetite for experience
PETRY IS DANGEROUS
IF YOU’RE AFRAID OF CHANGE
Karen Margolis Berlin 2003/2007
Extract from:
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER
Fall 2007
Poems from Guantanamo
Abused, desperate and isolated, Guantánamo prisoners have turned to writing poetry as a way to preserve their humanity. Despite the Pentagon’s vigorous efforts to suppress the poems, a dedicated band of pro bono lawyers for the detainees have published a collection.
By Marc Falkoff
The Pentagon’s reaction to the publication of Poems from Guantánamo has been predictable. Last June, in an article in the Wall Street Journal, Defense Department spokesman Cmdr. J. D. Gordon commented on the collection by saying, "While a few detainees at Guantánamo Bay have made efforts to author what they claim to be poetry, given the nature of their writings they have seemingly not done so for the sake of art. They have attempted to use this medium as merely another tool in their battle of ideas against Western democracies." Gordon had not, at the time, read the poems. (…)
Many men at Guantánamo turned to writing poetry as a way to maintain their sanity, to memorialize their suffering and to preserve their humanity through acts of creation. The obstacles the prisoners have faced in composing their poems are profound. In the first year of their detention, they were not allowed regular use of pen and paper. Undeterred, some drafted short poems on Styrofoam cups retrieved from lunch and dinner trays. Lacking writing instruments, they inscribed their words with pebbles or traced out letters with small dabs of toothpaste, then passed the "cup poems" from cell to cell. The cups were inevitably collected with the day’s trash, the verses consigned to the bottom of a rubbish bin. (…)
Military officials at Guantánamo destroyed or confiscated many of the prisoners’ poems before the authors could share them with their lawyers. In addition, the Pentagon refuses to allow most of the existing poems to be made public, asserting that poetry "presents a special risk" to national security due to its "content and format." The risk appears to be that the prisoners will try to smuggle coded messages out of the prison camp.
Still, the earliest of the poems we submitted for classification review were deemed unclassified, and it was only after the Pentagon learned that we were putting together a book of the poems that the hand of censorship came down. Hundreds of poems therefore remain suppressed by the military and will likely never be seen by the public. In addition, most of the poems that have been cleared are in English translation only, because the Pentagon believes that their original Arabic or Pashto versions represent an enhanced security risk. Because only linguists with secret-level security clearances are allowed to read our clients’ communications (which are kept by court order in a secure facility in the Washington, D.C., area), it was impossible to invite experts to translate the poems for us. The translations included in the collection, therefore, cannot do justice to the subtlety and cadence of the originals. (…)
Marc Falkoff is an assistant professor at the Northern Illinois University College of Law and attorney for 17 Guantánamo prisoners. He is editor of Poems from Guantánamo, published by University of Iowa Press, 2007.
