Customer Reviews

Theater of War

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"Theater of War translates, from the rhetorical to the farcical, the most under-read official document released by the Pentagon after 9/11, the US National Security Strategy Report as an obsessive, bizarre proclamation for world domination. Interspersing the author's renderings of the Security Report are satirical poems, theatrical biographies, and glossaries of puns that, if they don't make you laugh or cry, are sure to offend! There is no figure, subject, or emotion that is safe from his subversive playfulness in this text. Any patriotic notion to suspend dissent during crisis has been shattered--like, as Powers writes, "the sky over Baghdad to which Sam Champion reads the weather"-- and with it our innocence/ignorance. The poems alone are worth the read!"

In this detournement of political statements like the U.S. National Security Strategy Report, a reader will inquire when is "the truth" blurred; conversely, when does Powers' alternative reading come painfully close to the real? The author's hard-hitting, farcical longer-form poems might have constituted a part one, dissolving into the more empathetic, injured fragments. But his choreographed admixture embodies how emotions come. Anger interspersed with hurt; a loudly reinterpreted official voice, broken by still louder whispers.

This book really blows the pages off of its own cover. As a three-time student of the author, I recommend this book to any student who wants to look into the mind of a politically conscious professor. His poetry flows deep into the soul and mind of everyone who comes into direct contact with it. His book is honest, at times brutally enough to make the reader feel as deeply as him, whether you agree with him or not. This book is an insightful and thoughtful read.