David Smith-Ferri reads from 'Battlefield Without Borders: Iraq Poems'
Two thirds of the poems in "Battlefield Without Borders" were written while in Iraq, after his encounters with Iraqi people, in a wide-range of settings - from hospitals to homes to bomb sites. The remaining poems have been written since. Smith-Ferri visited Iraq for the first time in July 1999, as part of an eight-member fact-finding delegation organized by the Chicago-based group, Voices in the Wilderness, whose purpose was to gather first hand information about the humanitarian crisis caused by international economic sanctions and the terror caused by the policy and practice of "no-fly zone" bombings. He returned to Iraq in September 2002, in the run-up to the invasion, to interview Iraqis, investigate the likely real life consequences of a United States military invasion on ordinary Iraqis, and to reconnect with Iraqi families he had met previously.