Blues for Unemployed Secret Police: Poems by Doug Anderson [Paperback]

Doug Anderson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2000

Doug Anderson's "Blues For Unemployed Secret Police" dramatically reflects his experience of growing up in the sixties, serving as a field medical corpsman in Viet Nam, and confronting the modern era where "a good torturer can always find a job". With passion, humor, and strikingly original images, these poems illuminate everything from bad politics to love gone wrong.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Anderson is quite different from two other, better-known Vietnam poets, Bruce Weigl and W. D. Ehrhart--more universal than the intimate Weigl, more populist than the radical Ehrhart. He hasn't published as much as his peers; this is only his second collection. If he needed time to hone these powerful, funny-horrific, brutal-tender poems, though, be glad he took it. Anderson has learned hard facts that he relays indelibly. The title poem is the monologue of a South African Special Branch member who is now fleeing the country confidently, for "A good torturer can always find a job." Anderson elsewhere depicts an "Oedipus Blind," who may be properly repentant but proudly recalls his rapture with Jocasta: "You cannot know what this was like. / The smell of her." A pair of Neruda-inspired poems conjures the partnership-conspiracy of "Coyote" and "Crows." Anderson's "Homage to Pound" is genuine but poses the impolite question: "Mad? How about guilty." This is all no-nonsense stuff. Ray Olson

Review

"Anderson infuses his poetry with social consequences and a concern for those lives...touched by injustice or violence." -- MultiCultural Review

"Anderson's poetry is passionate, humorous, original." -- Midwest Book Review

"Simply magnificent. A miracle of language." -- Demetria Martínez

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 72 pages
• Publisher: Curbstone Books; 1st edition (April 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1880684705
• ISBN-13: 978-1880684702
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,258,671 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Doug Anderson has written two books of poems of which The Moon Reflected Fire won the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and Blues for Unemployed Secret Police a grant from the Eric Matthieu King Fund of the Academy of American Poets. His play, Short Timers, was produced at New York's The Theater for The New City in 1981. He has written film scripts, fiction and criticism and is at present at work on a novel about human trafficking. He earned a Phd from the University of Connecticut and teaches at the Hartford campus. His awards include fellowships from the NEA, the Virginia Quarterly Review, Poets & Writers, Inc., The Massachusetts Artists Foundations, The MacDowell Colony and other funding organizations. His work has appeared in Poetry, The Massachusetts Review, The Connecticut Review, The Southern Review, Ploughshares and many other literary magazines.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Passionate, humorous, original, dramatic poetry., June 6, 2000

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blues for Unemployed Secret Police: Poems by Doug Anderson (Paperback)

The poetry of Blues For Unemployed Secret Policy dramatically reflects Doug Anderson's experiences growing up in the sixties, serving as a field medical corpsman in Viet Nam, and confronting the modern era where "a good torturer can always find a job." Anderson's poetry is passionate, humorous, original, and ranges from bad politics to love gone wrong. The Oracle: On the altar the flies of God/swarm on the pomegranates and roasted oxen./We say we want to know the truth/but as the light sweetens/and the priestess does not arrive/we grow comfortable with the old lies./I want and do not want the razor-edged/pendulum that swings in my heart./The woman gone and why./Years of wide-eyed blindness./There is tenderness in all gathered here/in the shade of the temple./When we were young we dreamed/of a plateau where everything/could be seen in all directions/and suffering evaporated in wisdom./Silence is the power/that pools in the shadows of words/and when finally we stop speaking/it pins us to the ground

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Babylon, Lizards and Kimono, May 11, 2000

By 

Deborah Bogen "deb bogen poet" (Pittsburgh PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Blues for Unemployed Secret Police: Poems by Doug Anderson (Paperback)

Anderson's first book, The Moon Reflected Fire, won prizes, among them the prestigious Kate Tufts Discovery Prize. Such a strong first book leaves a poet plagued by the cynic's question,"sure, that book was good but can he do it again?" Blues for Unemployed Secret Police is Doug Anderson's answer and it is a resounding YES. This is one of those rare books in which stunning poem is followed by stunning poem, where we come to understand that the poet's earlier focus on Vietnam was an instance of a larger focus on the complex beauty and darkness which attend any real look at our deepest natures. Anderson compels our attention because he knows that the intensity of experience, whether pain or joy, which can be easily identified in extreme situations is also present when we find ourselves walking down a city street wondering why we are drawn to its noise and confusion (see Babylon) or when we are watching a "live petroglyph" "drawing the story of light larger in each twirled telling" (see Lizard). Anderson lives (uneasily) with his own beast, and with "the new evil" that "pours into the deep cup with the evil I have already seen" without forsaking what is good and nourishing in the world and among us (see Kimono, see Crow, see Coyote). Listen to this: "We don't come with souls, we make them up out of our ripening and our going to seed." How do you NOT read a poet who can write that?

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Poignant and living, April 19, 2004

By 

J. Moss (New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Blues for Unemployed Secret Police: Poems by Doug Anderson (Paperback)

I discovered Doug Anderson's collection of poetry _Blues for Unemployed Secret Police_ when he was invited to teach a poetry workshop at my high school several years ago, of which I participated in. Doug talked to us about his poetry, his experiences in Vietnam, read some of his poems (from this collection) to us, and then helped us with our own poems by providing critiques. His manner, his poetry, and his humility--as well as his willingness to come to a high school and teach to a bunch of self-important high school students. Doug's poetry is riveting, it draws you in, and its beautiful in its humility. I recommend this collection to everyone.