Musical setting of poems by prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.
Performed by baritone Te Oti Rakena and cellist Katherine Hebley at Auckland Chamber Orchestra's Composer Portrait concert dedicated to the music of Annea Lockwood.
Guantanamo Bay Photo: Public Domain
The book ‘Poems from Guantánamo: The Detainees Speak’ was released in 2007. It contains 22 poems in English translation written by prisoners in the US detention camp at Guantánamo Bay. The 22 being poems that the Pentagon agreed could be published … many others remain locked away, the Pentagon arguing apparently that poetry “presents a special risk to national security because of its content and form”.
Annea Lockwood has selected three of the poems to set in her work In Our Name (2009):
‘Death Poem’ by Jumah al-Dossari from Bahrain,
‘Brothers, Bear the Weight’, an excerpt from 'The Truth' by Emad Abdullah Hassan from Yemen, and
‘Is It True?’ by Osama Abu Kabir from Jordan.
Recorded by RNZ in Raye Freedman Arts Centre, Epsom Girls Grammar School, Auckland, 11 August 2019
Producer and mixing engineer: Tim Dodd
Recording engineer: Rangi Powick
