Deniability

“George Witte’s Deniability takes on the war on terror, chronicling the myriad ways in which, with language as accomplice, it has left “the mind’s-eye map . . . undone.” In verse forms attuned to contain a flyaway reality, Witte relentlessly deconstructs the host of verbal misappropriations such as “hearts and minds,” “just war,” “rendition,” and “friendly fire” that blindside political discourse and with every repetition are “pearled anew.” Beginning with the fall of the Twin Towers and traveling forward in time, Deniability tracks an America enthralled by images of violence and fear. The deeply ironic voice of many of the poems is that of “we the people,” whose government’s power “to crush again and kiss the damage” enslaves both other nations and ourselves.” –Lee Sharkey, author of A Darker, Sweeter String “That arch-citizen, Suspicious, who lived among Them in the Cold War, now lives among Us. Is Us now. We all feel the costs and compromises of living ordinary lives in a nation whose actions contradict its ideals, but naming those costs and compromises (the first step toward contesting them) is difficult when our linguistic well has been poisoned by pervasive lying. That is why