The Foreign Service Journal, April 2011

60 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 1 1 titled “Learning from Humanitarian Aid.” Citing protocols and standards that the international humanitarian community has developed, Rebecca Winthrop writes of a focus on princi- ples, people, processes, programming and perspectives that has gradually so- lidified into guidelines that stand up quite well to the stresses of emergency operations. Still, I remain skeptical that proce- dures that apply to humanitarian oper- ations will work for development assistance, for two reasons. First, the urgency of humanitarian operations makes donors more willing to compro- mise on leadership and coordination. It also makes donors less likely to insist on rigid requirements, for fear of being la- beled a “spoiler” and causing needless deaths. Instead of top-down approaches, I contend that the history of the United States and most developed countries illustrates the necessity of instituting the rule of law, along with a sanctions- backed, merit-based civil service and an economic regulatory framework. Other than providing major infra- structure (roads, ports, dams, canals, etc.), governments should take a back seat to private investment as the pri- mary engine of truly organic and sus- tainable economic development. No approach is perfect, but such a process is more likely to lead to a wealthier, more dynamic society than any of the sustainable development and poverty reduction programs out- lined by the many contributors to this book. Leon Weintraub, a Foreign Service of- ficer from 1975 to 2004, is director of the University of Wisconsin’s Washing- ton, D.C., Semester in International Af- fairs Program. Poetry for Home and Away Stateside Jehanne Dubrow, TriQuarterly Books, 2010, $17, paperback, 58 pages. R EVIEWED BY D AVID T. J ONES In a profession dominated by prose (and probably doomed to become even more prosaic post-WiliLeaks), a book of poetry might seem, well, undiplo- matic. But Stateside speaks elegantly and eloquently to a baseline problem with deep roots that has become in- creasingly poignant today: career-dri- ven professional separations. A self-described “diplobrat,” Je- hanne Dubrow applies her Ph.D. in English to the structure of being spouse to a naval officer. Stateside thus speaks in three sections to the circum- stances of a military deployment: preparation; deployment; return. But while the poetry is couched in military parlance, it is professionally global. As the daughter of diplomats, Ms. Dubrow has “been there, done that” with the United States Foreign Service, and that reality also colors her writing. The first section speaks to the mun- dane elements of pre-deployment life: a day/sleepover at the beach; buying a dog; appreciating the technical vocab- ulary of Navy life and the utility of the slightly coded curse “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.” In the third section, Ms. Dubrow touches on the joys and ten- sions of return: “Home is the sailor; home from the sea.” In between, the deployment/over- seas assignment/hardship posting, Ms. Dubrow invokes Penelope, Odysseus’ long-suffering, and enduring, spouse. The modern incarnation contemplates her hairdo (“Penelope Considers a New Do”) and faces the results of (over)eating alone (“Penelope, on a Diet”), but she also offers practical “In- structions for Other Penelopes” in free verse. Far from ponderous, the poetry has a mild tongue-in-cheek touch, as well as a tinge of the politely erotic. Nor does Ms. Dubrow reject the occasional rhyme (which is good news for those whose poetry appreciation ended with “The Raven”). More generally, she leaves the reader wondering why po- etry—once a key element of everyday social conversation, epitomized by Keats, Shelley, Poe, Whitman, Eliot, Frost and others —has essentially dis- appeared from popular literature. Ms Dubrow’s verse offers an incentive to rethink this neglect. For more information about the book and the poet, visit www.jehanne thepoet.com. n David T. Jones, a retired Senior FSO, is a frequent contributor to the Journal . He is the co-author of Uneasy Neigh- bo(u)rs: Canada, the USA and the Dy- namics of State, Industry and Culture (Wiley, 2007), a study of U.S.-Cana- dian relations. B O O K S The realities of Foreign Service life color Jehanne Dubrow’s poetry to good effect.