MAC
06-11-2003, 06:41 PM
New Book Hails Glory of D.H. Rumsfeld, Poet
(http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=5&u=/nm/20030611/od_nm/books_rumsfeld_dc)
By Arthur Spiegelman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - You might think that he's just Secretary of Defense, but Donald H. Rumsfeld is also a poet even though he doesn't know it.
In fact, says journalist, humorist and verse compiler Hart Seely, the man's poetry has been hidden -- embedded, if you will -- deep inside his numerous press briefings and it took round-the-clock perusals of Pentagon (news - web sites) transcripts to liberate the poems, free the verses.
Seely says there's gold to be mined in Rumsfeld's words as in the poem "The Unknown," which takes pride of place in the just-published book he edited, "Pieces of Intelligence: the Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld" (Free Press):
"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 unknown unknowns
"The ones we don't know we know."
Seely, a reporter for the Syracuse Post-Standard who specializes in "the long stories in the paper that people never read," said he first realized that America did not know what it had in Rumsfeld during his rambling Iraqi war press briefings.
NOT YOUR AVERAGE TALKER
A lot of the Pentagon press corps just thought that the 70-year-old former Congressman was just a garrulous old codger and they would click off their pens at the moment when Seely started taking notes.
In classic journalistic style, Seely realized that the circumlocutions and gerunds gone astray contained a folk wisdom worthy of a Spiro T. Agnew, Casey Stengel or even Yogi Berra, who once noted of a popular restaurant, "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."
Take for example this poem on a woman journalist that Seely titled "'Cheating woman" in a section in the tiny 118-page book called "Nine Poems for the Media":
"She said she had a question
"And she asked three
"I asked for an easy one
"And she gave me a tough three."
Seely said he even found a Rumsfeld poem that rhymed, which he titled "Flying, Too":
"Now that is not always true.
"Think of the B fifty-two.
"It's still flying just fine, thank you.
"And so am I ... thank you."
Seely said the book is all Rumsfeld's words and that he was helped in recognizing the value of Rumsfeld's "poems" by a book he collaborated on about a decade ago about a similar figure in public life, "O Holy Cow! The Selected Verse of Phil Rizzuto," the great Yankee shortstop and broadcaster.
In fact, when asked to name the poet that Rumsfeld most reminds him of, Seely says "Rizzuto," without missing a beat.
"If I did anything except use Rumsfeld's words, it would be cheating. As a result my eyes practically had a film on them because the Pentagon's transcripts don't have paragraph marks. I have driven roads that are shorter than some of these paragraphs; they're longer than a baby's leg," Seely said.
So far, the Secretary of Defense has had no comment.
But as he said in the poem "Gerbil":
"I feel like a gerbil
"I get on that thing
"And I run like hell."
------------------------------------
Well, its good to know he has somethign to do since he's said that if Bush wins reelection he will not serve as Sec of Def again.
*MAC snaps his fingers and orders another espresso*
(http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=5&u=/nm/20030611/od_nm/books_rumsfeld_dc)
By Arthur Spiegelman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - You might think that he's just Secretary of Defense, but Donald H. Rumsfeld is also a poet even though he doesn't know it.
In fact, says journalist, humorist and verse compiler Hart Seely, the man's poetry has been hidden -- embedded, if you will -- deep inside his numerous press briefings and it took round-the-clock perusals of Pentagon (news - web sites) transcripts to liberate the poems, free the verses.
Seely says there's gold to be mined in Rumsfeld's words as in the poem "The Unknown," which takes pride of place in the just-published book he edited, "Pieces of Intelligence: the Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld" (Free Press):
"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 unknown unknowns
"The ones we don't know we know."
Seely, a reporter for the Syracuse Post-Standard who specializes in "the long stories in the paper that people never read," said he first realized that America did not know what it had in Rumsfeld during his rambling Iraqi war press briefings.
NOT YOUR AVERAGE TALKER
A lot of the Pentagon press corps just thought that the 70-year-old former Congressman was just a garrulous old codger and they would click off their pens at the moment when Seely started taking notes.
In classic journalistic style, Seely realized that the circumlocutions and gerunds gone astray contained a folk wisdom worthy of a Spiro T. Agnew, Casey Stengel or even Yogi Berra, who once noted of a popular restaurant, "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."
Take for example this poem on a woman journalist that Seely titled "'Cheating woman" in a section in the tiny 118-page book called "Nine Poems for the Media":
"She said she had a question
"And she asked three
"I asked for an easy one
"And she gave me a tough three."
Seely said he even found a Rumsfeld poem that rhymed, which he titled "Flying, Too":
"Now that is not always true.
"Think of the B fifty-two.
"It's still flying just fine, thank you.
"And so am I ... thank you."
Seely said the book is all Rumsfeld's words and that he was helped in recognizing the value of Rumsfeld's "poems" by a book he collaborated on about a decade ago about a similar figure in public life, "O Holy Cow! The Selected Verse of Phil Rizzuto," the great Yankee shortstop and broadcaster.
In fact, when asked to name the poet that Rumsfeld most reminds him of, Seely says "Rizzuto," without missing a beat.
"If I did anything except use Rumsfeld's words, it would be cheating. As a result my eyes practically had a film on them because the Pentagon's transcripts don't have paragraph marks. I have driven roads that are shorter than some of these paragraphs; they're longer than a baby's leg," Seely said.
So far, the Secretary of Defense has had no comment.
But as he said in the poem "Gerbil":
"I feel like a gerbil
"I get on that thing
"And I run like hell."
------------------------------------
Well, its good to know he has somethign to do since he's said that if Bush wins reelection he will not serve as Sec of Def again.
*MAC snaps his fingers and orders another espresso*