Why does the Third World
Hate us so much?
The American citizen asked himself
As he ran along the street.

In the aftermath of 9/11 and the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York, America learnt a lot about itself. Just who was to blame for this apocalyptic disaster is the subject of the first of these two extended poems by a Sri Lankan Tamil, someone who instinctively aligns himself with the Third World in the quotation above. His second poem, The Song of a Liberated Zone, is focused on north-east Sri Lanka (Ceylon), home to the oppressed Tamil people.

The Tamils could be likened...