Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld
written by: Cory Q
My wife, being the clever woman she is, found this entertaining little book that encompasses all the major things that MRT likes to feature: poetry, politics, books, and humor. Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld is a 118 page book of 'poems' culled from hour upon hour of footage of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The mastermind behind such a compilation is Hart Seely.
The idea behind this book is as such: Seely sifts thought hours of Rumsfeld and from these briefings, notices that Rumsfeld has something strangely poetic to say underneath all the double-talk and mumbo jumbo. Seely groups the poems into several categories including "Lyrical Poems", "Nine Poems on the Media", "Twelve Sonnets", "Free Verse", "Zen", and "Songs of Myself".
I am not sure I can really add much to this explanation of what the hell is going on here, so I will offer a few selections of 'poetry' from The Man With the Guns...
Under the section heading "War is Peace: The Zen Master Poet"
Chasing the Chicken
If you're chasing the chicken
Around the chicken yard
And you don't have him yet,
And the question is, how close are you?
The answer is, it's tough to characterize
Because there's lots of zigs and zags.
(Nov 14, 2001, with editorial board of The New York Times)
In the Red Sea
The Red Sea begins and ends.
And then there's an area
Just Beyond the Red Sea,
And it may very well be
That people chose to do it
Before they get in the Red Sea
Or after they're in there-
Possibly, probably, certainly.
(Dec 9, 2002, to reporters, en route to Eritrea)
Under the section heading "Twelve Sonnets"
The Digital Revolution
Oh my goodness gracious,
What you can buy
off the Internet
In terms of overhead photography!
A trained ape can know an awful lot
Of what is going on in this world,
Just by punching
on his mouse
For a relatively modest cost!
As a matter of fact,
I’m trying to get
a picture of my ranch
And see what it looks like
From two-hundred miles up!
(June 9, 2001, following European trip)
Under the heading "Nine Poems on the Media"
Cheating Woman
She said she had a question
And she asked three.
I asked for an easy one
And she gave me a tough three.
(April 26, 2002, meeting with troops in Kyrgyszstan)
and this has to be one of my absolute favorites
Under the heading "Free Verse"
Central Question
It's awfully hard to know,
In fact, it's impossible to know,
Unless one just speculates.
I don't know how many people
Who live in an exceedingly repressive regime
Actually like it.
(Feb 25, 2003, remarks to the Hoover Institution).
I think you can see from these excerpts the type of humor and strangeness found in these well compiled and edited chunks of speech. I found this book to be completely worth my $12!
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