Dissent and Death
In this book, the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970 by the Ohio National Guard is narrated in a poetical form. This shooting during an antiwar demonstration resulted in the killing four students and wounding nine others. This historical event shook the conscious of people around the globe. The author uses her poetical skills to describe the history as a series of images, feelings, sounds, and experiences. Adopting a lyrical style helps the reader enter this moving and powerful genre and puts into a different focus on a story that has been widely published.
Author Deborah Wiles is known to write on children, community, historical events and social justice in her literary work. Recreating a story as powerful as John Filo's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller is certainly challenging. This is powerfully illustrated by narratives that is well researched. This experience moves your heart to tears for lives cut short, lives damaged, and the nation forever scarred. The author hopes that her work will articulate the devastating moment in the history, understand the landscape of the events that led to the tragedy.
Several singers and song writers vividly narrated the shootings, one notable song was written by Neil Young, and sung by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Music and artistic presentations narrate a story more powerfully than written prose. This compact sized book of 132 pages makes an interesting read.
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