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Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld

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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.

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"Pieces of Intelligence" is the landmark publication of verses written by the previously unpublished existentialist poet, D.H. Rumsfeld.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.

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.)

Go to http://www.defenselink.mil/news/archive.html to see many of these excerpts for yourself, such as quotes from Department of Defense news briefings. First search by the date to get to the press release, then usually there is a link at the bottom to the actual transcript, where you can search for the quote.

Things to understand about this book:
1) These are Rumsfeld's own words, taken from interviews, press conferences and the like. They have only been broken into poetic forms.
2) This is not "poetry by Rumsfeld." It's not like the guy fancies himself a poet. He fancies himself a Defense Secretary.
3) Just because it demonstrates the laughable qualities of a right-winger does not make it left-wing propaganda.

I loved it so much I typed the whole thing to a file and have been e-mailing one poem a day to dozens of friends. I get regular thanks, even from the conservative crowd.

Who knew that Donald Rumsfeld could unintentionally write a book of poetry that can only be compared with the works of Calvin Trillin?

Give credit to Hart Seely for taking the words of an original "Vulcan"* and parsing them as free verse. Honest, Seely is not making this up. The sources of the Rumsfeld quotes are all cited.
--
*(Mann & Mann, _Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet_, Viking, 2004, ISBN 0670032999)

I don't see this as Left-ist or Right-ist; it's just Rumsfeld! Listen to one of his Press Briefings and you'll hear how his statements sometimes go off on wild tangents.

And it gives insight into the Rumsfeld philosophy. For example, consider:

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 2, 2002, Dept. of Defense news briefing

Remember that Rumsfeld said he couldn't predict what would happen in Iraq, both in testimony to Congress and to interviews with the media? Before the war, he insisted its cost was "unknown," hence the appropriations for it weren't in the 2004 Budget. That was the reason the $80 Billion supplemental appropriation was needed last Fall.

Or consider this November 2003 quote from Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy,

"We don't exactly deal in 'expectations.' Expectations are too close to 'predictions.' We're not comfortable with predictions. It is one of the big strategic premises of the work that we do." ... The limits of future knowledge, Feith said, were of special importance to Rumsfeld, "who is death to predictions." "His big strategic theme is uncertainty," Feith said. "The need to deal strategically with uncertainty. The inability to predict the future. The limits on our knowledge and the limits on our intelligence."

-- Reported by James Fallows in the January/February Atlantic Magazine.

You can pick up this book at any page, read the verse, and ponder.

Well worth the price.

Donald Rumsfeld's oblique and often rambling pronouncements and interview answers make hilarious -- and chilling -- reading, whatever your political persuasion.

I can't bring myself to agree that this book isn't partisan; perhaps the book wasn't compiled with that intention, but reading it certainly,forces some serious political thinking. What do you say about a man who looks the American press (whatever their shortcomings) in the eye and says:

I was briefed on that story before I came down.
I have not gone over it.
It's interesting.
Let me try to put it in context,
And then I'll see if I can answer it.
I have no idea what what it's about.

(...)Where are these gems of verbal prevarication being hidden? In the pages of this book, which will make you laugh until you cry with despair and fear. After all, even tricky Dicky didn't try to convince us he had no idea about something he admits he just read.

You REALLY think Hart Seely is a republican? Come on. This book is one of the most brilliantly subversive digs at the Bush administration there's been. And it's as funny as Jack Handy -- actually, funnier. 'Cos Rummy's stuff isn't made up; these are the actual words of one of the most powerful men in the world.

Get it? Funny.

p.s.: my favorites are "Muscles", "Night at Camp David", and "Rappin' 'Bout My 'Tude."

First of all, anyone who does take this book seriously is crazy. Secondly, have any of you out there heard of irony? The point of this book is to mock Rummy,not cheer him on! So when reading this "book of poetry", please don't forget the grain of salt--and a sense of humour.