01—Ignobel
The poet’s incredulity when Obama is awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. From October 2009.
Verses Verses Empire—II
The Obama Era
How Obama Made Trump Possible!
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 oversee unprecedented levels of deportation and whistleblower prosecution.
What to make of it? What to make of him?! Abdiel LeRoy charts an epic course through the inferno of U.S. politics, while exposing the follies and fraud of Empire.
Yet his verses are rendered with such wit and inventive force that the reader is entertained, rather than overwhelmed, and backed by deeply researched historical record that will inspire progressive forces at this critical time for Humanity.
In the age-old contention between prophets and rulers, score one for the prophets, and witness that the pen really is mightier than the sword!
Hear the Author read from Verses Verses Empire—II
02—SpOiled
On BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. From June 2010.
03—Shiitake
on Japan’s nuclear disaster at Fukushima following the earthquake and tsunami of Mar. 11, 2011.
04—XMassed
Sonnet on the Christmas Truce of the First World War and its depiction in Christmas advertising by U.K. supermarket chain, Sainsbury’s. From December 2014.
05—Outfoxed
On U.S. broadcaster Fox News. From January 2015.
06—Get Carta
on eighth-centenary celebrations of Magna Carta. From February 2015.
07—Bust
Sonnet on acts of vandalism by “Islamic State” at the Mosul Museum and Public Library in Iraq. From February 2015.
08—Black and Blue
on the death in police custody of U.S. Army Sergeant, James Brown, during a two-day jail sentence in El Paso, Texas. From May 2015.
09—Glib
Sonnet on David Cameron’s speech at Magna Carta eighth-centenary event, Runnymede, June 15, 2015.