Poet Frederick Foote Participating in Book Signing Events for the New Day Campaign

BALTIMORE – Frederick Foote, author of Medic Against Bomb: A Doctor’s Poetry of War, will give multimedia poetry readings and sign copies of his books at two events for the New Day Campaign this week in Baltimore.

• Read, Write and Heal - Thursday, Nov. 19, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., at the Institute for Integrative Health (1407 Fleet St., 21231)

• Listen In with ellen cherry: COMBAT - Saturday, Nov. 21, 6 to 9:30 p.m. at Area 405 (405 E. Oliver St., 21202) Foote will join singer/songwriter, ellen cherry; Alonzo Lamont and the Veterans Ensemble to share veterans’ stories and shed light on post-traumatic stress.

ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN

The New Day Campaign is a 2015 initiative using art to challenge stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness and addiction, making the world a more healing place. Running for 92 days, it includes 15 art exhibitions, 60 public events and a community outreach campaign in the Baltimore region “to open hearts, change thinking and conversations, and offer pathways to action.”

Foote will donate a portion of his book sales from both events to the New Day Campaign.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A retired U.S. Navy neurologist and the military’s foremost expert on holistic medicine, Foote has created holistic medicine programs (including arts and writing programs) for our nation’s Wounded Warriors and veterans, during the past 15 years, working closely with the Institute for Integrative Health.

In developing such programs as the Walter Reed Healing Arts Program and the Warrior Poetry Project, he learned that “making art and music, and engaging with nature, is often more effective for healing than medications or surgery, particularly for patients with brain injury or PTSD, the twin scourges of the current wars.”

Foote brands himself as a “good grey poet,” who helps our veterans and tells their story, following the tradition of Walt Whitman. Reviewers have compared his work to that of classic war poets such as Homer and Wilfred Owen.

He is poetry editor of O-Dark-Thirty (the magazine of the Veterans Writing Project), and director of the Warrior Poetry Project at Walter Reed. His poems have appeared widely in national magazines, including Commonweal, The Progressive and The Journal of the American Medical Association, as well as veterans’ publications such as Warrior Writers’ After Action Review.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Winner of the Grayson Books Poetry Prize (out of 180 entries) and touted as “one of the best available sources on modern war experience,” Medic Against Bomb describes the experiences of the wounded of the Iraq/Afghan Wars (both American and foreign Muslim patients) and the inspiring efforts of U.S. military medics to heal the ravages of war.

Several colleges and schools are using the book in classes on war and literature, including the U.S. Naval Academy and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. The poems derive from the cruise of the Navy hospital ship COMFORT (T-AH-20) to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and from encounters with American Wounded Warriors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Md., from 2001 to 2014.

An initial section titled, “Contact,” describes the direct experience of treating the wounded of war. A central “Battle Fugue” section addresses the combat experience as seen by those engaged. The final section, “Ruins of Peace,” encompasses mourning and themes of loss. The book also touches on the roles of women in war, the so-called “clash of civilizations” and the spiritual challenges that make war a “violation of the sacred.”

To date, Foote’s book signing and performance events have raised more than $500,000 for the Green Road healing garden initiative, the Maryland Network of Arts and Gardens for Veterans (based at the Institute for Integrative Health), and other veterans’ projects.

Medic Against Bomb is available on Amazon and in selected bookstores, including Navy Exchange locations worldwide. For more information about the book or Foote’s upcoming events, visit http://medicagainstbomb.com; contact 240.483.9676 or Fred.Foote@comcast.net, or follow Foote on Facebook and Twitter.