Then the War
And Selected Poems, 2007-2020
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poetry: A Luminous Journey of Self-Discovery
"I'm a song, changing. I'm a light
rain falling through a vast
darkness toward a different
darkness."
In his Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Then the War, celebrated American poet Carl Phillips continues his ongoing quest of self-discovery and exploration. Written amidst rising racial conflict and uncertainty in the United States, these poems delve deeper into Phillips's signature landscape: a forest of intimacy, queerness, and moral inquiry, where the further we venture, the more challenging it becomes to recall our origins and motivations.
Then the War showcases a generous selection of Phillips's work from the past thirteen years, including his lyric prose memoir, "Among the Trees," and his chapbook, Star Map with Action Figures. Throughout this luminous collection, Phillips rejects pessimism, advocating instead for the profound revolutionary potential of tenderness and human connection. He conjures a spell against indifference and the temptations of nostalgia, offering a powerful testament to the importance of self-reckoning.
This essential volume solidifies Carl Phillips's position as an ever-evolving, indispensable voice in contemporary poetry, as he fearlessly illuminates the path toward understanding and transformation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Combining new and old poems from the last 13 years with sections of his lyric prose memoir, "Among the Trees," this selected offers admirers of Phillips's work a chance to revisit his masterful poems, and new readers an opportunity to see the evolution of a vital presence in American poetry. There is a deceptive looseness in Phillips's poems, which are conversational and intimate, heightening the poet's abiding concern with nuance. He begins "The Difficulty": "It's as if the difficulty were less about what happened—/ the truth presumably—than how little/ what happened resembles the story/ of what happened." Often, he lays two ideas side by side as a way of exploring how beings (fathers, lovers, dogs, to name a few) affect one another: "what isn't love—at all—/ can begin to feel like love" ("Of California"); "as if to be plundered meant at least not being alone" ("Among the Trees"). These lyrically rich, insightful poems are full of palpable aching—"like the rhyme between lost/ and most"—and a human urge to understand. This remarkable compendium is a testament to the spirit of Phillips's work.
