Deniability

by George Witte

"Witte's achievement rests in maintaining his poise and applying his considerable intelligence even in the heat of the national moment....this collection stands a chance of enduring as a work of witness."
--American Book Review

"Smart, timely, and sane, this volume is highly recommended." --Library Journal


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.

Genres: Poetry

91 pages, Paperback

First published January 31, 2009

About the author

George Witte is the author of four books of poems: An Abundance of Caution, Does She Have a Name?, Deniability and The Apparitioners. His poems have been published in a range of journals including Consequence, Five Points, Nimrod, Revel, The New Criterion, The Yale Review, Think, and elsewhere, and anthologized in The Best American Poetry, Rabbit Ears (poems about television), The Doll Collection, (poems about dolls), and What the House Knows, (poems about houses, shelter, families, and secrets). He has received the Frederick Bock Award from Poetry magazine and a fellowship from the New Jersey Council on the Arts. He lives in Ridgewood, New Jersey.