Can Poetry Bear Witness to Atrocity?

Found Poems from the Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002)

Cover of Testimony (art by Papay Solomon)

Shanee Stepakoff’s Testimony is an extraordinary assemblage of “found poems” taken from the official transcripts of the war crimes tribunal established by the United Nations and the postwar Sierra Leonean government to assess and document the trauma inflicted on innocent civilians during the Sierra Leone…