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War
Look in my eyes. My bronze skin reflects the flames of the battles.
I feed on bullets and shrapnel.
I have trenches instead of veins and a bombardier’s whirring plays my favorite symphony inside my big head. This is my story, with some of my best camouflages and disguises, and you should expect your peace plans to fail. Because that's what I do for living.
Look at my million golden teeth necklace. Ring any bells? Maybe you’re too young. I probably should have mentioned the fireworks over the Baghdad night sky, my new friend, or the live broadcast of two great skyscrapers disintegrating. You know what I'm talking about, right? So, you can call me by one of my many names: Great General, Lock-box of the Powerful, Red Rain, Lord of Steel or, more simply, WAR.
I appear as strife of many kinds, from Stalingrad to Scotland. Africa to Afghanistan, the civil war of Italy and the War Between the States, ghostly wars, drug wars, the battle of the sexes, World Wars I, II and visions of a holocaust yet to come. It’s all herein and more, with poems both collaborative and individual.
I feed on bullets and shrapnel.
I have trenches instead of veins and a bombardier’s whirring plays my favorite symphony inside my big head. This is my story, with some of my best camouflages and disguises, and you should expect your peace plans to fail. Because that's what I do for living.
Look at my million golden teeth necklace. Ring any bells? Maybe you’re too young. I probably should have mentioned the fireworks over the Baghdad night sky, my new friend, or the live broadcast of two great skyscrapers disintegrating. You know what I'm talking about, right? So, you can call me by one of my many names: Great General, Lock-box of the Powerful, Red Rain, Lord of Steel or, more simply, WAR.
I appear as strife of many kinds, from Stalingrad to Scotland. Africa to Afghanistan, the civil war of Italy and the War Between the States, ghostly wars, drug wars, the battle of the sexes, World Wars I, II and visions of a holocaust yet to come. It’s all herein and more, with poems both collaborative and individual.
87 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 8, 2018
47 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 8, 2018
Full review from my website.
Earlier this year I had a very belated introduction to Marge Simon’s work with Satan’s Sweethearts. Like War (Simon’s newest, co-written with Alessandro Manzetti), Sweethearts (co-authored by Mary Turzillo) is a dense, rigorously researched collaboration in historical horror poetry. Maybe this comparison makes War and Sweethearts sound like extremely particular (even niche) sub-genre pieces, but they benefit equally from clearly defined senses of focus, cohesion and specificity.
War has provided me with another long-delayed introduction, this time to Alessandro Manzetti. Like Simon, Manzetti is an extraordinarily prolific and celebrated force in the contemporary genre field; and like Turzillo’s poetry in Sweethearts, Manzetti’s style in War meshes intuitively and powerfully with Simon’s.
This collection’s title implies a far-reaching, even macrocosmic thematic thread; but Simon and Manzetti wisely choose to lend attention to the tangible, the microcosmic, sometimes even the horrifically banal. Written as a series of free-form pieces (some collaborative, some solo), War is comprised mostly of brutal and uncompromising vignettes and tableaux. Both Simon and Manzetti demonstrate aptitude for calculated and disturbingly descriptive language, making use of poetry’s formal confines to hone exacting depictions of human cruelty.
This focus on the particular does not overshadow War’s considerable ambition: spanning time, place and point of view, this collection approaches its title topic from the terrifying angles of imperialism, post-traumatic stress disorder, misogyny, fear, racism and ignorance. Sometimes slipping into their speakers’ perspectives and sometimes writing with chilling omniscience, Manzetti and Simon offer no reprieves. This book delivers blunt-force impact to match its subject. Fitting for a contemporary world that feels more apocalyptic with every passing day, War demands attention and makes no compromises.
Earlier this year I had a very belated introduction to Marge Simon’s work with Satan’s Sweethearts. Like War (Simon’s newest, co-written with Alessandro Manzetti), Sweethearts (co-authored by Mary Turzillo) is a dense, rigorously researched collaboration in historical horror poetry. Maybe this comparison makes War and Sweethearts sound like extremely particular (even niche) sub-genre pieces, but they benefit equally from clearly defined senses of focus, cohesion and specificity.
War has provided me with another long-delayed introduction, this time to Alessandro Manzetti. Like Simon, Manzetti is an extraordinarily prolific and celebrated force in the contemporary genre field; and like Turzillo’s poetry in Sweethearts, Manzetti’s style in War meshes intuitively and powerfully with Simon’s.
This collection’s title implies a far-reaching, even macrocosmic thematic thread; but Simon and Manzetti wisely choose to lend attention to the tangible, the microcosmic, sometimes even the horrifically banal. Written as a series of free-form pieces (some collaborative, some solo), War is comprised mostly of brutal and uncompromising vignettes and tableaux. Both Simon and Manzetti demonstrate aptitude for calculated and disturbingly descriptive language, making use of poetry’s formal confines to hone exacting depictions of human cruelty.
This focus on the particular does not overshadow War’s considerable ambition: spanning time, place and point of view, this collection approaches its title topic from the terrifying angles of imperialism, post-traumatic stress disorder, misogyny, fear, racism and ignorance. Sometimes slipping into their speakers’ perspectives and sometimes writing with chilling omniscience, Manzetti and Simon offer no reprieves. This book delivers blunt-force impact to match its subject. Fitting for a contemporary world that feels more apocalyptic with every passing day, War demands attention and makes no compromises.
November 19, 2018
Beautiful words for an ugly topic—War by Marge Simon and Alessandro Manzetti lay bare the bones of conflict and display them, every detail, for us to examine from the safe confines of our living rooms.
Raw, political and very real, these poems don’t hold back with their messages. The imagery is vivid, painting a mural of death across the reader’s mind. The poems don’t focus on any particular war, but offer a varied box of experiences. From jungle to desert and everywhere between, we are given a glimpse of the tragedy we wreak upon ourselves.
Without sounding like a 70s protest, the verses in War don’t come across as judgmental. They state facts and provide the experience so that we may judge. Besides the lovely writing, I have to give major credit to the illustrator as well.
Stefano Cardoselli has taken my breath away with his complex and engaging images. Darkly humorous, I found myself spending as much time looking at his art as I did reading and thinking about the poetry.
A wonderful book, I highly recommend it and wish Simon, Manzetti and Cardoselli all the best with this powerful book.
Raw, political and very real, these poems don’t hold back with their messages. The imagery is vivid, painting a mural of death across the reader’s mind. The poems don’t focus on any particular war, but offer a varied box of experiences. From jungle to desert and everywhere between, we are given a glimpse of the tragedy we wreak upon ourselves.
Without sounding like a 70s protest, the verses in War don’t come across as judgmental. They state facts and provide the experience so that we may judge. Besides the lovely writing, I have to give major credit to the illustrator as well.
Stefano Cardoselli has taken my breath away with his complex and engaging images. Darkly humorous, I found myself spending as much time looking at his art as I did reading and thinking about the poetry.
A wonderful book, I highly recommend it and wish Simon, Manzetti and Cardoselli all the best with this powerful book.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews