poetry Archives - Page 3 of 9 - Foreign Policy In Focus

Iran: Poetry Can’t Be Arrested

by Sholeh Wolpe | Jun 29, 2011

One Saturday afternoon while walking down Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, I gave into the urge to stop people at random and ask them what came to their minds when I mentioned Iran. Here are some of their responses: Islamic government, human rights violations, a nuclear threat, sponsors of terrorism, Holocaust deniers, women in veils, anti-Semites, Khomeini’s fatwa on Salman Rushdie, enemies of Israel and the West, and the 1979 hostage crisis. Only one person had anything positive to say, and it had something to do with a great kebab dish he had had at a Persian restaurant on Westwood Boulevard.

Recreating Baghdad’s Lost Literary Street

by Sarah Browning | Jun 28, 2011

Named for a tenth-century poet and revolutionary who lived in what is now Iraq, Al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad was the center of the city’s intellectual and literary life. It was home to booksellers, stationery stores, antiquarian bookstores, and cafes as famous for the ideas that flowed freely as for their pungent coffee.

The Last Son of China

by J. P., Melissa Tuckey | Jun 27, 2011

..……………..hello hello hello…Weiwei…where have you been?…I see you in dreams…bleeding…in the darkness of the sun…79 spots in the flame…each a nightmare one cannot wake up from…Weiwei…the last son…you told me as we said goodbye…your last night on the Lower East side…未未…the last child of your Mother and Father…born in the labor camp…exiled from Beijing to the far desert…

Review: The Postman

by Alicia Gregory | Jun 20, 2011

Van Gogh. Robots. Buddhism and the Bible. In Mun Dok-su’s long poem, The Postman, these elements, and a variety more, weave together to form a searching narrative that addresses some of the largest questions of humanity. What is at the root of war, terror, and destruction? How does one hold on to one’s humanity in the face of modern warfare and technology? As a postman delivers news to the door, Mun Dok-su delivers answers to his reader. At 82 years old, the poet has given the world his landmark work—an epic poem that exudes fire and fearlessness.

Normal

by Reginald Harris | Jun 20, 2011

walk long enough
with a pebble in your shoe
and walking with a pebble becomes
normal

Rubber Dollie

by Scott Hightower | Jun 17, 2011

It’s a macabre charade,
one night in the secret

theater of Abu Ghraib.
The anklets are shackles.

In another, a leashed
dog — loud, black,

and snarling — takes
center stage.

The Day Obama Decided

by Margit Berman | Jun 15, 2011

The day Obama decided enough was enough
and turned off his TV and slept well for the first time since 2007,
and Nancy Pelosi decided enough was enough
on a weekend in Vermont, when she threw
the Times and the Post into the woodstove unread,
and Congress decided enough was enough
staring into the mirrors of their sleeping consciences:
They began by ordering all the troops home.

Review: ‘I Go to the Ruined Place’

by Alicia Gregory | Jul 16, 2010

The infamous torture photos from Abu Ghraib were first released to the public in 2003. The horrific images of prisoners hog-tied and beaten naked, leashed like dogs with bags over their heads, and posed in forced sexual positions — all with grinning U.S soldiers in the background — rode with us on the morning commute, made their way onto our computers at lunchtime, and sat with us during the six o’clock news. The pictures were a challenge as well as a revelation. As editors Melissa Kwasny and M.L Smoker write in their introduction of I Go to the Ruined Place: Contemporary Poems in Defense of Global Human Rights: “We suddenly seem[ed] to be asked to decide to what extent we will stand up and speak out for human rights.”

Music is Still the Weapon

by John Feffer | Mar 16, 2010

On February 18, 1977, a thousand Nigerian soldiers surrounded the Kalakuta Republic and burned it to the ground.

As republics go, Kalakuta wasn’t very large. Only 100 or so people lived there. But the immensely popular musician Fela Anikulapo-Kuti had created this compound, in the Nigerian capital of Lagos, as a joyful and democratic space in an otherwise corrupt and dictatorial country. The sovereignty of Fela’s republic was always under threat. And even though the invaders threw his mother from the second floor on that day in 1977, and even though the soldiers cracked his skull, and even though the government jailed him for trying to defend himself, Fela continued to fight back. He used his Afrobeat music and biting lyrics as his weapon.

A Fond Farewell to Dennis Brutus

by Shirin Shirin | Feb 23, 2010

In this interview, I spoke with Dennis Brutus about his experiences as a poet and lifelong activist six months before his death in December 2009.