Killing America: Our United States of Ignorance, Fear, Bigotry, Violence and Greed is Reggie Marra's fourth book of poems. Marra 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. On September 4, 2018 a copy of the book was mailed to each member of Congress, the Supreme Court and the President.
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
About the Author: REGGIE MARRA has conducted hundreds of poetry, narrative healing and adult development workshops for organizations that include the National Association for Poetry Therapy, The Transformative Language Arts Network, the Connecticut Office of the Arts, Healing Newtown, the Arts Alliance of Northern New Hampshire, the National Wellness Institute, the National Speakers Association, the Unitarian Society of New Haven, Iona College and in schools throughout the northeastern United States. He worked as both a teacher and a judge for the NEA's Poetry Out Loud program from 2006-2016 in high schools throughout Connecticut, and hosted the 3rd-Friday Open Mic at the Hudson Valley Writers Center in Sleepy Hollow, NY from 1997 through 2004. Reggie is an Integral Master Coach(TM), a Registered Mentor Coach with the International Coach Federation and Creative Director and core faculty member at Teleosis Institute. Author of eight books, his "And Now, Still" and "Coaching and Healing: Transcending the Illness Narrative" were released in 2016. Through 1996 he served for 21 years as a teacher, basketball coach and administrator in secondary and higher education. More information: www.reggiemarra.com and https: //killing-america.com/.
