Deniability

Set in our post 9/11 climate of deceit and mutual suspicion, the poems in Deniability utilize the vocabularies of bureaucracy and religion, exploring how the former co-opts the ancient latter, to such consequential effect.

Wielding clichés, repurposed words, rootless acronyms, and the persuasive lingo of expertise, these poems betray or undermine their speakers' confidence. Civil networks erode with mutual suspicion; surveillance holds neighbors at one remove. One woman steels herself for mortal crisis; commuters walk, ride, and pray in heightened states of awareness; a SEAL team is ambushed, an official blows smoke around a troubling admission, and a child asks three questions on what might be the last day of her life.

With wit and formal acuity balanced by emotion, Deniability considers what we lose when we abdicate the power of language, and so surrender to the seductive language of power.