Ken Waldman has made his living since 1994 touring as Alaska’s Fiddling Poet, performing at some of the nation’s leading universities, festivals, arts centers, and clubs. His combination of Appalachian-style fiddling, storytelling, and original poetry has defied categorization, though he’s been compared to such artists as John Hartford, William Stafford, and Walt Whitman. As the World Burns is Waldman’s sixth poetry collection, and is part of a project that includes film and music.
About the book, the subtitle says it: The Sonnets of George W. Bush, and Other Poems of the 43rd Presidency. 43 poems are in George W. Bush’s voice, the poems he might have written if he’d somehow chosen to write sonnets. The remaining 21 poems, also sonnets, act as commentary. Here, Waldman has written a book square in the midst of our national dialogue. Sometimes subtle, sometimes scary, every page arresting. The book has an October 1 release date, but is available after September 1.
October 1, for the next stage of the project, Waldman will be releasing a CD with his band, The Secret Visitors. Also titled As the World Burns, the CD’s subtitle is 9 tunes, 26 poems, mischief. There’s also the film component. From late September on, there will be footage online of the mid-August week Waldman spent in Texas being filmed first at a club date in Austin, then at sites in Crawford, Texas, and then back in Austin inside the Texas state capitol.
More information is at www.kenwaldman.com/astheworldburns.htm, and the site will be updated as the material becomes available.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Jon Stewart on the Rumor of His Campaign for the Presidency of the United States
I
George W. Bush: On Privacy
George W. Bush: On God
George W. Bush: On Friendship
George W. Bush: On Sobriety
George W. Bush: On Inarticulateness
George W. Bush: On ANWR
George W. Bush: On Iraq
George W. Bush: On Criticism
George W. Bush: On The New York Times
George W. Bush: On Daydreaming about Music
George W. Bush: On His Visionary Dream
George W. Bush: On His Second Dream
George W. Bush: On His Relationship with Karl Rove
George W. Bush: On Polls
II
Questions About Diebold, and the Others
Vice President, Dick Cheney
His M.B.A.
Condoleezza
Sonnet with 15-Lines for George W. Bush
The Wife
Abu Ghraib
The Mother
Military Man
Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Vietraq
III
George W. Bush: On Patriotism
George W. Bush: On Stress
George W. Bush: On Vacation
George W. Bush: On Debt
George W. Bush: On Iraq II
George W. Bush: On Biking
George W. Bush: On Drugs
George W. Bush: On His Dream of Gold
George W. Bush: On His Dream of Babel
George W. Bush: On the Dream of His Secret Breakdown
George W. Bush: On His Dream of Saddam Hussein
George W. Bush: On Death
George W. Bush: On Faith
George W. Bush: On Global Warming
IV
Vice President Cheney Shoots Fellow Hunter in the Face
Post-Katrina
In Texas
The Courts
Impeachment
Conspiracy
Where Yes Means No, Maybe
Veterans
Here, Where Hitler Meets O.J.
Brother Jeb
The Daily Spin
V
George W. Bush: On Dad
George W. Bush: On Classifying and Reclassifying Information
George W. Bush: On No Child Left Behind
George W. Bush: On Iraq III
George W. Bush: On Leakers
George W. Bush: On Jack Abramoff
George W. Bush: On the Environment
George W. Bush: On the Internet
George W. Bush: On Health Care
George W. Bush: On the Twins
George W. Bush: On D.C.
George W. Bush: On Stephen Colbert's Appearance at the 2006 National Press Club Dinner
George W. Bush: On His Final Dream
George W. Bush: On His Visionary Dream
The noon sun shone like a giant round sword.
I grew euphoric when I saw the blood
that drenched the sky. The red wetness felt good
like my heart had just been opened. The Lord
is my Shepherd and I was flying toward
His House. I knew there was plenty of food
awaiting me. I was starving. My mood,
I said, euphoric. There's no other word
to explain this. The brightness, the colors,
the feelings, the hunger. I was soaring.
In my head I could see all the others
equally high beside me. Majoring
in God, I heard a chorus sing. The sound
stirred me. In tears, I was wearing a crown.
His M.B.A.
Undergrad at Yale, master's from Harvard,
you'd guess most superior business sense,
or at least intellect. In this instance, guess
again. Though his wallet's single card
reads U.S. President, we've also heard
of past jobs, serial mismanagement,
the utter follies of dollars and cents,
bankruptcies and worse. I wouldn't buy lard
from a quickshop he worked, yet there he sits
lording over nine far-reaching planets,
moving armies like tokens on a board.
If only he'd spend what we could afford.
The M.B.A. is a con man's degree--
snake oil without English and History.
"Rather than take the cheap path and make President Bush a comic caricature, Ken Waldman, in his brilliant sonnet sequence, As the World Burns, has chosen the harder, true road of art: to allow the president to speak his own firmly held and utterly sincere beliefs. But with each of Bush's assertions, Waldman damns the man's hypocrisy, arrogance, and intellectual shallowness. As the World Burns is a powerful indictment, for taking Bush seriously, not writing him off as a cartoon boob with jug-ears and a dopey smirk."
--Robert Cooperman, author of In the Colorado Gold
Fever Mountains (winner of the Colorado Book Award).
"Just when I was beginning to think that the only good politician was a dead politician, along comes Ken Waldman to restore my faith in laughter. Not easy to do here in the belly of the beast that is Washington, D.C."
--Richard Peabody, editor of Mondo Barbie and Gargoyle Magazine.
ISBN: 1-56439-129-9
Ridgeway Press
P.O. Box 120
Roseville, MI 48066 USA
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