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Witte Biography |
Deniability or The Apparitioners |
of Deniability: Poems |
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Home |
and Events |
Witte Biography |
Deniability or The Apparitioners |
of Deniability: Poems |
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“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 "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.....Deniability is a journey from beginning to end that allows the reader a connection to their own experience. It is a book I will read many times and then reread again, and, yes, I will get copies for friends. I'd send it classrooms and libraries if I could and to those who are tasked to decide whether or not to prosecute the past and how to proceed in a future made more dangerous for our eight years of Deniability." --Janet Ritz, The Environmentalist "In this second collection of poems from George Witte, the pace is fast, the images deliberately chopped and overlapped, and the language at the edge of raw. So it is a tribute to the considerable formal power of this poet that the effect is a focused, measured indictment of a government and a society that avoid responsibility by avoiding the truth....From the artwork by Fernando Botero to the last line of "Soft Targets", this work shreds whatever cover might be raised around the status-quo by a national or a personal need not to look too closely, not to feel too much. It forces us to confront, rather than deny, the damage that continues to radiate from devastation we have sustained and from devastation we have inflicted." --Academia "If many of the poems do not as readily lend themselves to brief quotation, it is because of their succeeding through tone and integrity in the etymological sense of being all of one piece, as the collection itself is more than the sum of its individual poems..... With art rather than art therapy in mind, this collection stands a chance of enduring as a work of witness to a moment that may already be passing—and not a moment too soon—but one that will continue to demand explication." --American Book Review | Return Home | Readings and Events | George Witte Biography | Purchase Deniability or The Apparitioners | Reviews of Deniability: Poems | |
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