"The Poet Emperor of Earth", John Telford imagines a dialogue with the Creator

Dr. John Telford’s new book,  “The Poet-Emperor of EARTH – An In-Depth Dialogue with The DEITY” is an allegorical novella, a dialogue between man and God in which they engage in a back-and-forth debate regarding the relative merits of democracy vis-a-vis so-called ‘benevolent’ imperialism.

Telford, a recent Superintendent of DPS who has a Sunday afternoon radio show at 3:00 on NewsTalk1200, manages to tell a captivating tale with poignance, humor, and depth.  As in much of his previously published poetry, mystical overtones resonate in this highly unusual tale which even drags in President Donald Trump for an appearance that he surely would not appreciate – which is what makes it all the more enjoyable.

Prof. Josh Bassett, the director of the Institute for Social Justice at WCCCD, writes in the introduction: “This famous Michiganian (or infamous Michiganian, depending on your political perspective), takes us through a wild, Dante-esque, only SEMI-fictionalized narrative, drawing upon his eighty-plus years of explosive earthly experience to speak proverbial truth-to-power with no less a luminary than God ‘Himself/Herself/Itself.’  As he did in his 2010 autobiography ‘A Life on the RUN – Seeking & Safeguarding Social Justice’ and in some of his other books and newspaper columns and in his radio and television shows, Telford confronts readers of ‘The Poet-Emperor of EARTH’ with fundamental questions concerning education, politics, social relations, and the future of democratic government–not only in Detroit and Michigan (whose many injustices imposed by the ‘powers-that-be’ it accusatively recounts multiple times) but also all across America and throughout the entire planet.”

Activist attorney Tom Stephens writes, “Dr. Telford deftly weaves a hypnotically hallucinatory world that supplants the equally surreal one we live in.”

Michael “Doc” Holbrook, a Board member of the Boggs Center in Detroit, states, “This unique novella is a masterpiece.  Also, one of its two main characters just happens to bear more than a passing and entirely UN-coincidental resemblance to the book’s prolific author–the poet Telford, who put his own crowned likeness on the front cover along with that of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel depiction of God and that of the author’s second-generation Russian-American wife Adrienne, who is characterized as the audacious feminist ‘Balalaika’ in the book.”

Writes Greg Dunmore of PulseBeat Arts, TV Channel 20: “This book contains higher-order insights.  It is a must-read.”