GEORGE HELD

SHOCK AND AWE

The President's proposed "Shock and Awe" attack on Iraq calls for saturation bombing that would be like the firebombing of Dresden or Tokyo, killing countless innocent civilians.

It sounds
subversive as
rock 'n' roll
pure product
of America
like Jim Crow
and Wounded Knee

and now Baghdad
where other
ancient
brown people
await concussion
and incineration
in our name

I'm shocked
at the savagery
awed by the indifference
to life
blooming like
a mushroom cloud
in our name
 

George Held has been teaching English at Queens College since 1967. He was Fulbright lecturer in American literature in Bratislava for one year and in Prague for two. In 1990 he began to publish his poems, more than 300 of which have appeared in such journals as Commonweal, Connecticut Review, 5 AM, and The Wallace Stevens Journal. A former Pushcart Prize nominee, he is the author of three poetry chapbooks, the most recent of which, Open and Shut, was a winner of the 1999 Talent House Press Chapbook Contest. His poems accompanying paintings by Roz Dimon appeared as Absolut® Death and Others in 2000. George's latest book of poems is Beyond Renewal (Cedar Hill, 2001). He also reviews poetry books for such publications as The American Book Review, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Notre Dame Review. Since 1991 he has co-edited The Ledge, a nationally distributed poetry journal, and he is the editor of an anthology of erotic verse entitled Touched by Eros (The Live Poets Society, 2002).

More of George's work is available at Poetz 2002