The Twin Towers of Baghdad and Troy;

An Episodic Essay in Verse and Prose

by international Who's Who poet Stanley K. Freiberg (Europa Publications) is a significant, cross-culture exploration of history's unrelenting legacy of Anointed Dominion.
The wide-ranging episodes are laced with poetic voices, ancient and modern, singing to counter the worship or war.
Author Commentary, cited below, acquaints the reader with the manner of presentation, intention, and dimension of the work:

History, myth, evolution, religion, imperialism and archetypal patterns are blended in this literary dramatization of the relentless, pervasive age-old legacy of the sword over song.

Devoid of the desire for dominion, poets continually preserve a few warm embers from "glorious" perished and perishing empires. In every age, some compose defenses of their art and persist, as Auden said in praise of W.B. Yates, to "sing of human unsuccess in a rapture of distress."

But the present chaos in Iraq belies poetic refuge and the burden of singing of desecrated Baghdad transcends the madness of Orpheus, driven by his loss of Eurydice to grief beyond song.

Living a year with the Iraqi people and a lifetime with The Poets have coalesced into the creation of this anachronistic literary pilgrimage to "straunge strondes" and "sundry londes" in an attempt, like Chaucer and William Blake, to "open the doors of Perception."

The Writer of the Book of Job travels in his ox cart to Benares; Gautama and Thel see their own grave plots in a sequestered vale; Thomas Hardy wanders bewildered and a-cold on the heath; a Ganges fisherman praises Vishnu for walking upon the waters in perilous seas and saving his sons; a boy from Milk River, Alberta drowns in the Nile. Such episodes, whether actual, fabricated, or on loan from the poets, are rendered for reader and author appraisals.

Two major historical-legendary antique wars are juxtaposed in the work. Homer's epic story of the elopement of Helen of Sparta with Paris to Troy and Valmiki's Sanskrit Ramayana epic describing the demon Ravana carrying away Sita, the devoted wife of Rama, illustrate the primordial Pentagon credentials of Behemoth and Leviathan. Charles Darwin and Carl Jung, who explored together in the Galapagos Islands, realized that primitive minds would inevitably bring the Second Coming of smart bombs to Baghdad.

Images and sorrow from the ancient battle-filled epics of Homer and Valmiki have been outdistanced and supplanted by 24-7 photos of carnage, the city in flames, and unconscionable interviews with survivors and people in pain. One of the objectives in the invasion of Iraq has been accomplished: the Wooden Horse trick was managed by remote control; but technological legerdemain will never clarify the double exposure of ancient Troy and contemporary Baghdad together in flames.

-SKF

Critical review copies are available from Pamela Mitchell, Agent: pmitchel@telus.net (Suggestions of publications with possible interest are much appreciated. Remuneration for printed reviews is negotiable. Please visit website www.stanfreiberg.com

The Twin Towers of Baghdad and Troy
Newport Bay Publishing Ltd., Victoria, BC (Oct.2007;28pp.)
Canaian Archives No. 0-921513-16-X

info@newportbay.ca $12.00 Cdn.