The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld, Set to Music

[Chicago Democrat]

The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld, Set to Music
CD Features Songs Based on Defense Secretary's Statements


Composer-pianist Bryant Kong and singer Elender Wall bring music to Donald Rumsfeld's words.
Credit: Stuffed Penguin Music



March 12, 2004 -- Last year, Donald Rumsfeld's pronouncements from Pentagon briefings and media interviews were arranged into poems. Now those poems have been set to music.

Columnist Hart Seely put the defense secretary's words to poetry in the book Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld. One poem, "The Unknown," was based on one of Rumsfeld's most famous phrasings: "There are known knowns. There are things we know we know..." (See the full text below.)

(snip)

Below are selected lyrics from The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld.

The Unknown

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

Audio and rest at...

http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_1761585.html

[stldemocrat]

1. Frightening...