“Francesco Levato’s powerful documentary, War Rug—like Eliot Weinberger’s What I heard about Iraq before it—detains the language of the perpetrators of global military aggression and redeploys it to indict them. From J.C. Penny catalog copy to counterintelligence manuals and autopsy reports, War Rug is a fierce yet unfortunate reminder of the absolute horrors of our age.”

—Mark Nowak, author of Coal Mountain Elementary

In the poem “War Rug,” which was published by Broadsided last June, Chicago poet Francesco Levato explores the reality of living under a constant state of emergency, referencing the Department of Homeland Security's color-coded advisory system in juxtaposition with other common crisis shorthand. “Code Blue: no breathing / no heartbeat,” he writes.

—Poets & Writers