Theater of War: The Plot Against the American Mind

by Nicholas Powers

A collection of socialist, surrealist poetry and prose, Theater of War parodies the rhetoric of the U.S. National Security Strategy Report, exposing the fascist machinations of the Bush administration. Presented with unforgiving humor, disjunctive syntax, and subversive wordplay, Theater of War removes the earplugs that "defend" us from dissent.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0976014203
• ISBN13: 9780976014201
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Upset Press
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Political mind on a rampage

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.

Subtext

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.