The Whole World Stopped: An Elegy for John F. Kennedy and the American Dream

Author: Jeanie S. Dean

Publisher: Primateva Press (2013)

The Whole World Stopped is a searing collection of researched poetry on the 1963 assassination of President John F Kennedy.  Jeanie Dean's poems surprise and challenge. Her inquiry dates to the 1970s with "Abortion of the American Dream" about the assassinations as a diaspora for the baby boomers." The poem links the 1960s protest movement with the unexpressed outrage of the youth who witnessed the murder of the president, a crime that had no legal consequence.

The Whole World Stopped explores the cannon of assassination research: Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, the Magic Bullet, Lyndon Johnson, George Bush, J. Edgar Hoover, and Vietnam. Dean makes astonishing observations from the body of photographic evidence. "Bulletproof Vest" posits that CIA assassin David Morales is the man in the Zapruder film, signaling with his arm. Speaking to our collective conscience, these poems reveal new insights into the public tragedy.

"Jeanie Dean gives us a panorama of compelling poetry and hidden history. She recaptures the sinister montage, fixed in time, haunted by the truth. An excellent performance!"

–Michael Parenti

"Jeanie Dean's poetry is a perfectly timed homage to the last president of the United States. All others since John Fitzgerald Kennedy have been only public mouthpieces for the private corporate powers... And that is the dark theme pulsating through The Whole World Stopped, the latest and most poignant insight of its kind."

–Frank Joseph

"An exciting and fresh way to experience one of the most riveting and electrifying moments of our lifetimes.  Jeanie Dean has the unique ability to wield words to describe exactly what we felt but were never able to speak out loud. Read, remember and speculate."

–Will Durst