I take a good amount of teasing about my area of study in college, and more than a little of it has come from myself. No more! By which I mean there will still be plenty of jokes from people who majored in marketing and own hi-def televisions more expensive than my car, but from this point on I refuse to make the “ha ha I majored in a useless medium in college,” jokes. Why this sudden revelation of self-confidence? Have I been offered a major book deal for my poems? No. Not even close, although I have received rejection letters, which are just as good except not at all. No my renewed self-confidence has come from a much more unlikely source, an isle off the coast of Cuba. Quantanamo, the happiest place on Earth.
Let me diverge for just a moment to say while a lot of people may pretend to read the Wall Street Journal, no one actually does. No one. If someone claims they read it they are a dirty, dirty liar. I recommend you never trust them again. This claim isn’t exactly backed by scientific research, but I can guarantee that no matter where you live if you walk around your neighborhood you’ll see unopened Wall Street Journals littering the stoops of apartment buildings and driveways. I think their readership is comprised entirely of people who make a New Year’s resolution to be more well read and subscribe, then a week in say screw it and let the paper pile up on their stoop.
That being said I’m also a reading whore, I’ll read anything given the right situation. I’ve even plowed through those Learning Annex magazines while waiting for trains. So I recently found myself with an hour to kill and came across an unopened Wall Street Journal on someone’s porch. I of course took it, and that’s not stealing because as I pointed out no one actually reads it, and then skimmed through it. For the most part it was boring, brain hemorrhage boring, but one article caught my attention; The Prison Poets of Guantanamo by Yochi J. Dreazen. It seems that prisoners at the detainment facility, and by prisoners I of course mean terrorists/people who have beards and lived in Afghanistan, were writing poetry in prison. Without pens they were using whatever materials they had handy, including scratching them into Styrofoam cups. Politics aside there is something deeply human happening here, with nothing left, thousands miles from home, these people turned to poetry. Poetry at its best is the language that remains when everything has been stripped away. Far from being impractical poetry is at the root of our humanity.
What’s even better is poetry’s ability to be subversive. Not surprisingly the military heavily censored any poems that made it out of Guantanamo. The DOD (Department of Defense) says, “Poetry presents a special risk because it is harder to vet than conventional letters because allusions and imagery in poetry that seem innocent can be used to convey coded messages.” Hell yeah they can. Poetry is the most powerful tool we have against oppression because it cannot be pinned down and stopped, this is why hip-hop can be such a powerful art form. Rock needs instruments to pass it’s message, but hip-hop at it’s rawest can be spread by mouth, and often in a language power structures don’t understand, making it nearly impossible to control. I’m getting a little worked up here, so let me back off before I get carried away. The point is that poetry is the last thing that can be taken from you, and it took a prison to remind me of that.
Let me diverge for just a moment to say while a lot of people may pretend to read the Wall Street Journal, no one actually does. No one. If someone claims they read it they are a dirty, dirty liar. I recommend you never trust them again. This claim isn’t exactly backed by scientific research, but I can guarantee that no matter where you live if you walk around your neighborhood you’ll see unopened Wall Street Journals littering the stoops of apartment buildings and driveways. I think their readership is comprised entirely of people who make a New Year’s resolution to be more well read and subscribe, then a week in say screw it and let the paper pile up on their stoop.
That being said I’m also a reading whore, I’ll read anything given the right situation. I’ve even plowed through those Learning Annex magazines while waiting for trains. So I recently found myself with an hour to kill and came across an unopened Wall Street Journal on someone’s porch. I of course took it, and that’s not stealing because as I pointed out no one actually reads it, and then skimmed through it. For the most part it was boring, brain hemorrhage boring, but one article caught my attention; The Prison Poets of Guantanamo by Yochi J. Dreazen. It seems that prisoners at the detainment facility, and by prisoners I of course mean terrorists/people who have beards and lived in Afghanistan, were writing poetry in prison. Without pens they were using whatever materials they had handy, including scratching them into Styrofoam cups. Politics aside there is something deeply human happening here, with nothing left, thousands miles from home, these people turned to poetry. Poetry at its best is the language that remains when everything has been stripped away. Far from being impractical poetry is at the root of our humanity.
What’s even better is poetry’s ability to be subversive. Not surprisingly the military heavily censored any poems that made it out of Guantanamo. The DOD (Department of Defense) says, “Poetry presents a special risk because it is harder to vet than conventional letters because allusions and imagery in poetry that seem innocent can be used to convey coded messages.” Hell yeah they can. Poetry is the most powerful tool we have against oppression because it cannot be pinned down and stopped, this is why hip-hop can be such a powerful art form. Rock needs instruments to pass it’s message, but hip-hop at it’s rawest can be spread by mouth, and often in a language power structures don’t understand, making it nearly impossible to control. I’m getting a little worked up here, so let me back off before I get carried away. The point is that poetry is the last thing that can be taken from you, and it took a prison to remind me of that.
Suck on that guy in the silk shirt who almost hit me with his Ferrari on Sunset Blvd.. You may have money and power, but I have language. Of course, if he wanted to write a love poem to his 20-year-old blond girlfriend I’d be more than happy to help him out, for a price. Hey, we all gotta eat.
