Please join us for “Abu Ghraib Arias” – A Performance of Poetry and Music by Philip Metres and Philip Fournier at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 19, in the Dolan Science Center Reading Room.
Join us for a spoken word/musical performance of “abu ghraib arias,” winner of the Arab American Book Award in poetry in 2012. Readers will include author Philip Metres, Danny Caine, Paige Webb, and Jackie Orchard. Philip Fournier will improvise musical support, amplification of, and reactions to the poetry, on piano.
“abu ghraib arias” tells the story of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal of 2003, from the points of view of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi prisoners. It is a poetic meditation on why torture happened there, and what torture does—both to its victims and its perpetrators. The poem draws upon Standard Operating Procedure manuals, testimony of torture victims, the words of U.S. soldiers, the Bible, and other texts.
Contact: Philip Metres 216.397.4528 or pmetres@jcu.edu.
Free and open to the public.