Deniability [Perfect Paperback]

George Witte (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 2009

Set in our post 9/11 climate of deceit and mutual suspicion, the poems in Deniability utilize the vocabularies of bureaucracy and religion, exploring how the former co-opts the ancient latter, to such consequential effect.

Wielding clichés, repurposed words, rootless acronyms, and the persuasive lingo of expertise, these poems betray or undermine their speakers' confidence. Civil networks erode with mutual suspicion; surveillance holds neighbors at one remove. One woman steels herself for mortal crisis; commuters walk, ride, and pray in heightened states of awareness; a SEAL team is ambushed, an official blows smoke around a troubling admission, and a child asks three questions on what might be the last day of her life.

With wit and formal acuity balanced by emotion, Deniability considers what we lose when we abdicate the power of language, and so surrender to the seductive language of power.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Witte's achievement rests in maintaining his poise and applying his considerable intelligence even in the heat of the national moment....this collection stands a chance of enduring as a work of witness."
--American Book Review

"Poetry is as ancient as language. It ranges from the simple pun to the complex metaphor. And at its best it is nothing less that music for the mind. Such is the caliber of poetry by George Witte that is now compiled into Deniability. This is Witte's second anthology and is particularly notable for his deft skills in creating memorable verse. 'Just Cause': A line is crossed, unnoticed by command/But photographed in fame's amoral flash./Bodies piled, trophy game atop which rests/One boot; smiles of shy surprise, unabashed.//Another line and wilderness surrounds/Us, humid aisles where everything's displayed/Conscripted to absolve our choices God/Deserts to find a new identity.//We bushwhack through thick scrub, directionless/The way's degraded, markers overgrown/Where filthy water swamps the lowest place/We lost crusaders kneel, and choke it down." --Midwest Poetry Review

"[Deniability] looks closely at our troubled times, as well as the troubling language and verbal abuse that surfaces in such uncertain moments: clichés and euphemisms, code words and doublespeak.... With loose but careful measures and a keen regard for the exactly right word, Witte examines every opened can of worms before kicking it down the road. Smart, timely, and sane, this volume is highly recommended." --Library Journal, February 1, 2009

Review

"There are times in history when it is best for a people to move on from past mistakes. There are other times, such as now, when the past cries out to be explored. For those who are searching for meaning to the last eight years, a new book by American poet, George Witte, Deniability, is the place to start. This is not only for writing that is spectacular in its simplicity, its perfect placement of each word, its prose, but for its bravery in peeling back the layers of the war on terror as an eight year journey that is stark and unforgiving in its verse."

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Product Details

• Perfect Paperback: 91 pages
• Publisher: Orchises Pr; 1st edition (January 31, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932535195
• ISBN-13: 978-1932535198
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,591,599 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

For twenty five years, I have worked as a busy editor at a commercial book publisher--not the usual environment for a poet. Most of the poems in The Apparitioners were written between 5:30-7:00 a.m., before the working day of phone calls, emails,and meetings, followed by manuscripts to read and edit in the evening. Now married and with two children, I no longer have those mornings free; instead, I write on the train, 39 minutes each way, each day, and every minute precious to me. My second collection, Deniability, was published by Orchises Press in January 2009. I'm at work on a third collection, poems from which have been published in Southwest Review, Virginia Quarterly, and Nimrod.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Memorable verse, January 16, 2009

By 

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

This review is from: Deniability (Perfect Paperback)

Poetry is as ancient as language. It ranges from the simple pun to the complex metaphor. And at its best it is nothing less that music for the mind. Such is the caliber of poetry by George Witte that is now compiled into "Deniability". This is Witte's second anthology and is particularly notable for his deft skills in creating memorable verse. 'Just Cause': A line is crossed, unnoticed by command/But photographed in fame's amoral flash./Bodies piled, trophy game atop which rests/One boot; smiles of shy surprise, unabashed.//Another line and wilderness surrounds/Us, humid aisles where everything's displayed/Conscripted to absolve our choices God/Deserts to find a new identity.//We bushwhack through thick scrub, directionless/The way's degraded, markers overgrown/Where filthy water swamps the lowest place/We lost crusaders kneel, and choke it down.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing and powerful poetry, April 13, 2009

By 

martinmuse - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deniability (Perfect Paperback)

I got this book after reading The Environmentalist's review and am amazed at the power of Witte's poetry and how it made me think about the last eight years in a different way. A good bet even if you're not a poetry fan. It will make you think.

5.0 out of 5 stars FROM 9/11 DOWN LOST HIGHWAYS TO A DARK HORIZON, July 1, 2009

By 

Donald A. Newlove (Greenwich Village) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Deniability (Perfect Paperback)

George Witte's Deniability strikes me as unrivaled for a Pulitzer Prize in 2010. It is a dictionary of the gibberish and antiterrorist reasoning that has justified torture and murder since 9/11, and builds for us a cold storm of those lies that shred language and make virtues of Washington's hidden hand as it shapes vile acts into seemingly strong walls. This national mini-epic opens with the fall of the Twin Towers and then shows the world as "one nickel's worth of mineral/from eternity" as we pass through fear and suspicion and false witness becomes the real thing while official lies and lullabies promote phony fallback systems to curb disaster. As Witte shows, we lie buried under sham language forged at the Pentagon, leaked by the White House and stamped as genuine by newsprint and tv screen. "A leak implies affirming fact:/there's wiggle room should details contradict,/events reverse themselves,/a photograph prove forged." Is God on our side? "Conscripted to absolve our choices God/deserts to find a new identity." No, even God can't bear our twists and rending of truth. But I'll keep this short. Any new book of poetry that has even one standout poem is a success. Deniability is chockablock with standouts, none more standout than the opening poem "Uh-Oh" which sets forth the falling towers and the book's themes. But the dense heart and power of "Uh-Oh" arises only as much of the book is taken in and one looks back on these first chords. As with "Uh-Oh", each poem asks us, Do not understand me too quickly. I went back to "Uh-Oh" perhaps seven times in reading Deniability and found something new each time. This happened time and again with others I reread after reading later poems. As I read I began checking off the poems I found most successful but after awhile that became pointless, since I'd checked off nearly everything. Again and again here are lawyerly lines that dance on their subtext, as in "Rendition"--"A patient process, this:/to rend soft tissue and extract/one actionable fact..." I measured "Uh-Oh" against Galway Kinnell's "When the Towers Fell", a poem I talk about at length in my forthcoming Passion: Ardor and Desire in Great Writing and I quote for you here my final thoughts about Kinnell's poem: "This is an almost great poem whose graphic detail burns up for some years to come the possibility of the great poem we might hope for about the towers. It will be hard for another poet to set aside Kinnell's more successful passages or rise above them to create the visionary poem that event demands -- although Kinnell takes a great first swipe at the poem hoped for." Deniability sets forth at visionary length the supreme event that sickens 21st century American history: how the towers tore us apart in ways the terrorists could not foresee, with our soul soon rent by scam upon scam. When my greater understanding of "The Third Pig" came to me, after a long pause for dinner between readings, I saw a unity of story and strength of feeling in that poem that put it at the top of my list of standouts, along with all the others at the top of the list. Still, the storytelling and intense delivery of "The Third Pig" makes it the most likely to be anthologized, the way "Buffalo Bill's defunct" works for cummings. Witte's "Pig" is a tale built of bricks which no cry of Wolf! can huff and puff and blow down. As with the entire volume, his voice bears such amused intelligence and such a lively attack on syntax that each line underscores an unwillingness to slacken its irony and break faith with the reader, not to say with the nation and its armed forces. May the Sunday Times review Deniability and lead it toward that Pulitzer I think it deserves. However, if I may offer a cautionary tale, piecemeal quotes out of context from Deniability (even mine here) when not seen in their larger context do not do justice even to themselves and may well seem irksome to busy readers who may ask, What is he talking about? He is talking about you, with your thumb on the remote.