
Verses Versus Empire: II — The Obama Era
"A brave new presence in the politics of the globe."
San Francisco Review of Books
A Poet’s Chronicle of Tyranny
Confused? You should be! Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2009 before going on to kill record numbers in drone strikes and prosecute more whistleblowers than any previous president.
What to make of it? What to make of him?!
In this second book of the Verses Versus Empire series, we witness the murderous effects of U.S. imperialism, its perpetual war footing sustained by official falsehood, contempt for international law, and perpetual assault on the Constitution. We also see the environmental devastation caused by BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and by nuclear disaster at Fukushima.
Abdiel LeRoy has chronicled these key events, and many more, through the lens of poetry, crafting in the process a monument of unprecedented literary achievement. His moods range from light-hearted satire and bawdy wordplay to searing irony and melancholic lament, and his verse forms vary from couplets to sonnets to quatrains, entertaining the reader throughout.
Here speaks a prophetic and poetic voice for our age.
“So well done. A remarkable command of the language and great sensitivity. And doing all this in an entirely new way, wading into (almost) unexplored literary territory.”
Claude Forthomme
“Abdiel LeRoy’s poetry and prose offer intellectual nourishment for critical thinkers and seekers of truth… I highly recommend this book and its companion editions to anyone who seeks to escape from the ‘Matrix’.”
Annemarie M. Osborne
“A joy to read and an invitation to keep your eyes open as to what is really going on.”
Rogier F. van Vlissingen
“LeRoy’s words dance.”
Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews, Top-10 Books of 2019