Killing America: Our United States of Ignorance, Fear, Bigotry, Violence and Greed is Reggie Marra''s fourth book of poems. As with his This Open Eye: Seeing What We Do (2006), Marra unflinchingly sees, writes and shares with the reader verbal snapshots of his country''s late 20th- and early 21st-century culture of violence as it manifests at home and abroad. His poems both grieve slaughtered school children, unarmed black men, ambushed law enforcement officers, church-, concert- and movie-goers, military veterans and victims of American foreign policy violence in the Middle East, and indict the leaders who refuse to act amid, or implicitly condone, the ongoing slaughter. Reviews "Killing America chills me, even after 25 years as a police officer and 15 years in counter-terrorism. We don''t see all sides of the violence we fight against, and these poems take no sides. Reggie Marra exposes the pain felt by fellow humans, the challenges we face when we take sides, and the compassion we need to see each other''s pain." - Christopher Rogers, Father, Husband, Retired Peace Officer and Bomb Technician "In Killing America, Reggie Marra gives us deep, disturbing images of War - at home and abroad. What I take with me, especially, are these lines from ''You Stood Up'' - ''your open heart / exposed the mask / of fear your mind / mistook for you, / so you stood up / and no one got hurt.''" - Waverly Nall, Father "Reggie Marra''s poetry is both raw and sobering, highlighting how violence changes everything it ''touches'' either by design or by default....Violence exists on a spectrum: inter-personal violence on one end and collective violence (military combat) on the other. Each of us is responsible for the violence we commit anywhere on that spectrum. "Marra''s work also illuminates how elected officials focus on gaining and retaining political power...If these elected officials don''t understand the nature of violence and its cultural implications, then their decisions (or indecision) will generate increased levels of unintended violence during their costly learning curve. The spectrum of violence can''t be eliminated; it can be minimized if understood. This book helps us do that." - Bob Killackey, Marine Infantry Officer, Combat Veteran, Husband, Parent, and now Public High School Teacher "In Killing America, ''The Sniper'' most resonates most with me, as it captures aspects of myself as a military officer (retired) and a parent. Reggie touched my soul as a basketball coach in my adolescence and continues to do so in my adult years." - Edwin G. Nall Sr., LTC(R), Father "What is the underside of the American dream?....[W]hat if the enemy is not from without, but within? What if America''s drive toward a unifying and international vision of democracy has become an ongoing war to glean supremacy over those without power on both U.S. and foreign soil? What if the victims of such a war were measured in data points-soldiers, civilians, students, teachers, men, women, children, the occasional politician-rather than empathy? "Reggie''s agonizing and precise language describes the carnage resulting from America''s efforts to destabilize dictatorships in Iraq or terrorists in Afghanistan, while shining an unbearable light on the victims of a million American bullets, of children dead, communities ravaged, and families of color pillaged... And what if the collective response from a fatigued nation was merely a shrug, the deaths of human beings simply collateral damage in a quest not for the accessibility of the American dream, but rather for the ongoing accumulation of power and money? Reggie''s vision is...a reveille to an apathetic American public who must rouse and feel and be damned if they will allow it to continue...." - Joan Hurley, 2008 Connecticut Teacher of the Year, Mother
- | Author: Reggie Marra
- | Publisher: From The Heart Press
- | Publication Date: Aug 09, 2018
- | Number of Pages: 136 pages
- | Language: English
- | Binding: Paperback/Poetry
- | ISBN-10: 0962782882
- | ISBN-13: 9780962782886
