July 11, 2012, - 5:19 pm
New Must Have for Your Library: “Poetry of the Taliban” – No Joke
Yes, there is actually a book out now, entitled, “Poetry of the Taliban (Columbia/Hurst).” You know, the cold-blooded Islamic murderers of countless American soldiers and even more of their own fellow Afghans. Yup, the same guys that just shot a woman at point blank range nine times to settle a dispute between two Talibani officers. The same guys who execute seven-year-old boys after using and gang-raping them as sex slaves. And the Los Angeles Times has a disgusting article gushing about in probably the same way they would have about the “Poetry of the SS” had the same writers been around then. Pol Pot’s ghost is regretting that all this hipster worship came too late for his poetry edition.
Best-selling author and former New York Times Reporter Joel Engel–whose best-selling books include The Oldest Rookie: Big-League Dreams from a Small-Town Guy [Hardcover], which became the hit movie, “The Rookie,” and a new book, “L.A. ’56: A Devil in the City of Angels” (which I’ll soon review on this site)–has a FANTASTIC critique/commentary on this exercise in absurdity and the LA Times’ sickening drool-fest. Here’s a taste–note that he’s also posted some of the “poetry”:
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, Kindle or hard copy? But maybe I should wait for the boxed set with Sonnets from Portuguese Nazis and Love Songs of the KKK.
Here’s how the Times’s Laura King summarizes the Taliban’s artistic efforts:
Denounced by some as propaganda by the enemy in America’s longest war, hailed by others as a rare window on a largely hidden world, the verse assembled in “Poetry of the Taliban” is by turns bombastic and introspective, dark and mirthful, ugly and lyrical — and perhaps above all, surprising in its unabashedly emotional tone.
Why we need a “rare window” when for a decade we’ve had a front-row seat is unexplained
Read the rest.
Tags: Joel Engel, Poetry of the Taliban
The wind was placid;
I through the acid;
and the now blind girls learned no more.
A dynamite laden cart
helped destroy 10th century art
what is next on the chart?
Okay, maybe I am not as good as Mohammed the explosives expert, but then I don’t have the gift of killing, err, poetry writing.
Jonathan E. Grant on July 11, 2012 at 5:30 pm