Pieces of Intelligence [Hardcover]

Donald H. Rumsfeld (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 074325239X | ISBN-13: 978-0743252393 | Publication Date: June 16, 2003

Kahlil Gibran meets George W. Bush meets Robert Frost: who'd have thought that America's most outspoken Secretary of Defence in decades would have turned public commentary into a form of poetry? Donald Rumsfeld is not just a two-time Secretary of Defence, former CEO, former White House Chief of Staff, and the most outspoken and forceful civilian military leader in recent American history. He is also, intentionally or not, a poet. A last, the ubiquitous and at times unintelligible U.S. Secretary of Defence has been deciphered by humorist Hart Seely, who found that the rambling raconteur is best understood when set in verse. Seely uncovers zen poems and lyrics, haikus and sonnets and has plucked the golden apples from 'D.H.' Rumsfeld's tree to present over 100 hilarious gems drawn from Rummy's public statements. Whether you love him or hate him, they're irresistible. As we know, There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know There are known unknowns. That is to say We know there are some things We do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, The ones we don't know we don't know.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Hart Seely is an award-winning reporter for the Post-Standard newspaper in Syracuse, New York. His work has appeared in National Lampoon, The Village Voice, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Spy magazine.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

The poetry of D. H. Rumsfeld (as he is known to the literary cognoscenti) demands to be read aloud. Like the epics of Homer, or modern African-American street poetry, Rumsfeld's oeuvre originated as oral improvisation, initially heard only by hard-bitten reporters and round-the-clock viewers of C-SPAN. Unlike most modern poets, who closet themselves with pen in hand, Rumsfeld surrenders to his poetic muse when confronting the boom microphones and iron-willed interrogators of the Washington press corps. During news briefings and media interviews, Rumsfeld quietly inserts haiku, sonnets, free verse, and flights of lyrical fancy into his responses, embedding the verses within the full transcripts of his sessions, which are published on the U.S. Defense Department's website.

A former Navy pilot, congressman, White House chief of staff, and pharmaceutical executive, not to mention a two-time secretary of defense, Rumsfeld has made a career out of turning divergent schools of thought into one coherent message. That versatility is reflected in his poetry.

At times, Rumsfeld composes in jazzy, lyrical riffs that pulsate with the rhythm of his childhood on the streets of Chicago. From there, he'll unfurl a Homeric tale cautioning us about the ways of bureaucracy. He'll fire off rounds of irony with a Western cowboy's sensibility, enough for some to call him "America's poet lariat." Or in poems like "The Unknown," his most disturbing work, Rumsfeld mixes Zen-like enlightenment and indifference, probably culled from his many trips to the Far East. "There are some things we do not know," the poet warns. "But there are also unknown unknowns."

For all its known and unknown unknowns, Pieces of Intelligence is less about national affairs than about the poet himself. From the era when gas stations held "little things" of glass to the leak-filled corridors of present-day Washington, Rumsfeld stands out as a man whose quest for real answers long ago required the kinds of questions no reporter dared to ask. "What in the world am I doing here?" he says, in "A Confession." His answer is no less a riddle. "It's a big surprise," and nothing more.

Sometimes comic, sometimes dark, D. H. Rumsfeld's poetry is irreverent but always relevant, occasionally structurally challenged and always structurally challenging. Pieces of Intelligence is the U.S. defense secretary's long-awaited first collection, combining precision-guided insights and a revolution in metaphorical affairs, to take the reader on a dazzling journey of the spoken verse.

Copyright © 2003 by Hart Seely

from Chapter One: War is Peace: The Zen Master Poet

The Unknown

As we know,

There are known knowns.

There are things we know we know.

We also know

There are known unknowns.

That is to say

We know there are some things

We do not know.

But there are also unknown unknowns,

The ones we don't know we don't know.

Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

Needless to Say

Needless to say,

The president is correct.

Whatever it was he said.

Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing

Muscles

Abu Zubaydah.

He had holes in him.

And he had some infections.

And he was not in great shape,

And he obviously talked

When people asked him questions.

And he said this, that and the other thing.

Has he started to give any intelligence?

I would assume so,

But anything useful?

It's not clear yet.

And I don't know that I want

To get into daily reports on it.

But his health is improving.

Now why don't the rest of you people

Go do pushups like this guy?

Look at those muscles!

He's got muscles in places

I don't even have places.

Look at him!

April 12, 2002, stakeout at the Pentagon

Copyright © 2003 by Hart Seely --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (June 16, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 074325239X
• ISBN-13: 978-0743252393
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,990,030 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

88 of 95 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Watch out Emily Dickinson, Rummy's Coming After You, July 11, 2003

By 

louienapoli "louieb" (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld (Hardcover)

Hilarious and startling. This book contains some real gems of what they call "found poetry," except it's all utterances from our Secretary of Defense. I admire Rumsfeld enormously, and his bizarre utterances have been turned into poetry through the inspiration of Hart Seely. It's just hard to believe these things were actually said. Gordon Lish must be green with envy. Take, for example, The Unknown:

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know we don't know.

Another favorite is The End of the World:

Puffs of dust
End up crawling
Up your leg
And hitting your knee
Because it's,
There might be
As much as an inch
Or two or three.

Come on, the reviewers who sniped at this collection reek of partisanship. I can't recall any politician talking extemporaneously like Rumsfeld. This is unwittingly brilliant, hilarious stuff. Whether you like the current administration or not, this book is worth owning for the sheer incredulity it inspires.

85 of 93 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Unique New Voice in American Poetry, September 3, 2003

By 

C. Colt "It Just Doesn't Matter" (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld (Hardcover)

The emergence of a unique poetic voice

"Pieces of Intelligence" is the landmark publication of verses written by the previously unpublished existentialist poet, D.H. Rumsfeld. While Rumsfeld is widely recognized and often quoted, his poetry has received surprisingly scant attention until now.

Rumsfeld first emerged on the scene during the turbulent Watergate years, however his poetry remained overshadowed by more flamboyant voices of the time such as those of J. Dean, G.G. Liddy, and D. Throat. Beginning in the late 70s, Rumsfeld entered the so called "wilderness phase" of his creative ruminations and was scarcely heard from. Turning up in a number of odd corporate and government locations, and once even in Baghdad as a guest of Saddam Hussein, much of Rumsfeld's poetry during this time remains classified.

Rumsfeld's period of artistic obscurity came to an abrupt end with the tragic events of September 11th, 2001. As a traumatized nation struggled to understand what had taken place, Rumsfeld addressed both its disorientation and its deep nostalgia for better times in his now landmark poem, "Glass Box" (December 6th, 2001).

You know, it's the old glass box at the-
At the gas station,
Where you're using those little things
Trying to pick up the prize,
And you can't find it.
It's-

And it's all these arms are going down in there,
And so you keep dropping it
And picking it up again and moving it,
But-

Some of you are probably too young to remember those-
Those glass boxes,
But-

But they used to have them
At all the gas stations
When I was a kid.

The beauty of this poem is that it remains both complex and accessible in a manner that appeals to practically every type of reader. The poem contains a clear sense of regression, with each stanza becoming progressively smaller until the final stanza "stabilizes" at the same number of lines as the preceding one. Similarly, while the first three stanzas end in incompletion with expressions such as "It's-", "But-", and "But-" the final one firmly anchors the poem with a nostalgic reference to childhood in a bygone era. At a time when the collective psyche of the nation's populace had become traumatized in an unprecedented fashion, "Glass Box" showed them that the answer to all of their problems lay in the past. The poet had found his voice.

While "Glass Box" may be Rumsfeld's signature poem, it is really his deconstruction of knowledge in the poem "Unknown" (February 12th, 2002) that demonstrates his skill and subtlety as an existential poet.

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

Because the musicality of this poem tends to fool many readers, they often miss out on its uncompromising logic. One useful trick to avoid the dreamy cadence produced by the "oh" sound in all the "knowns" is to separate them from the rest of the poem an a substantive manner:

Know known knowns
know know

Know known unknowns
not know

Unknown unknowns
don't know don't know.

Even by extracting and parsing the most emblematic term of this verse, we must labor to keep up with poet's logic. The beauty of this poem, as with many of Rumsfeld's more subtle ones is that, indeed, by the time he is done we wonder what it is we actually know.

While I have quoted two of Rumsfeld's more academic poems in this review, readers will be pleased to learn that he is a poet of tremendous variety, which makes his work infinitely readable. Among other genres, "Pieces of Intelligence" also features Rumsfeld's haiku, hiphop and free verse.

Whether you're a sophisticated student of poetry or just a person who enjoys some really cool verse, I highly recommend purchasing the first publication of D. H. Rumsfeld's poetry. I hope that in future we see more of Rumsfeld's verse including his lost earlier poems from the 70s and 80s.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is not political, March 25, 2004

By 

J. Lewis (Lake Oswego, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld (Hardcover)

It's funny. Our Secretary of Defense has a unique speaking style, often asking a series of rhetorical questions to which he provides responses as though interviewing himself. When some of his more meandering pronouncements are broken into free verse, the effect is hilarious. I bought these as Christmas presents for friends and co-workers and got universally great reactions.

It's too bad people on the fringes can't laugh at others and at themselves. I believe that if you can't laugh at yourself, you don't get life's greatest joke. (Did I write that? Yes, I did. Do I believe it? Absolutely. Thanks, Rummy.)