] But we should all be listening. Rumsfeld's poetry is ] paradoxical: It uses playful language to address the most ] somber subjects: war, terrorism, mortality. Much of it is ] about indirection and evasion: He never faces his ] subjects head on but weaves away, letting inversions and ] repetitions confuse and beguile. His work, with its ] dedication to the fractured rhythms of the plainspoken ] vernacular, is reminiscent of William Carlos Williams'. ] Some readers may find that Rumsfeld's gift for offhand, ] quotidian pronouncements is as entrancing as Frank ] O'Hara's. ] ] And so Slate has compiled a collection of Rumsfeld's ] poems, bringing them to a wider public for the first ] time. The poems that follow are the exact words of the ] defense secretary, as taken from the official transcripts ] on the Defense Department Web site. Selected poems: The Unknown, Glass Box, A Confession, Happenings, The Digital Revolution, The Situation, and Clarity. |