I was introduced to the collection of poetry above via Sandy Longhorn's blog Myself the Only Kangaroo Among the Beauty.
Every Seed of the Pomegranate by David Allen Sullivan is a book of poems I've revisited over the past couple of months because the verse is powerful stuff.
Sullivan chose to write all of the poems with the haiku form functioning as the poems' stanzas. The book is about the Iraq War.
As noted in the final paragraph of the preface, Sullivan gives the impetus for the collection: "I wrote these poems to help myself see beyond the simplistic labels of PTSD and jihadism, xenophobia and patriotism, and to imagine looking through others' eyes. I hope they become part of the ongoing dialogue that is the only way to begin healing the wounds--physical, psychological, social, and cultural--we suffer from in both countries. Poetry can create opportunities for empathy and understanding; it is one way to re-see ourselves, and the ones we too often see as the other."
Below are some snippets from selected poems to pique your interest. The ones with an omniscient narrator or from an American are left-justified. The ones from an Iraqi are right-justified.
Released
The day the prisons
opened all over Iraq
the eyes of the dead
rolled back. The living
massed at the gates...
Kurdish House on Fire
No tears mark these days.
After Saddam's soldiers left
she burned the bedsheets.
Ahmed Abu All, Shopkeeper
The imam and I
clasped hands and advanced. He said
We must speak with these
misled Americans.
As we stepped close, the turrets
and guns turned on us.
Born on the Fourth of July, in Honduras
He remembered that boy
he'd been, as he dove into
the swimming pool where
Saddam's portrait grinned,
chipped mosaic rippling.
He was American
now, proud to join up...
Lieutenant Colby Buzzel, Sniper, Stryker Brigade
... I felt nothin' but glad
when I stood over
his body, crumpled
like he was hugging his rifle.
Take a picture, dick.
Omar Yousef Hussein, Historian
We unspooled the wire,
filled in the thin ditch,
waited for the Americans.
It took half the day.
Afternoon was done
when someone spied the Humvee--
back then they didn't
travel in packs but
alone. When the wires touched...
Time Stands Still
For a Casio
that set the Marines jabbering;
it was the first thing
confiscated, first
reason suspicions were raised.
It remains, plastic wrapped,
labeled evidence,
in a Guantanamo desk,
while Kabir hunkers
in detention's night,
Baggage Claim
Today we can't stomach
what we made others do
to others we know less.
