From Three at 4:43, and here comes my friend, limping on his heavy boot, the heel come off. A cobbler's shop appears, and I buy the black nails, the dwarf's hammer, glue and strapping. I work hard on it, bending there until he speaks and walks on. But as he is dead, his voice and step make no sound. In his third book of poems, David Gewanter takes on wartime America, showing our personal costs and inextricable complicities. The constructs of our social lives, the conventions of our political values, the ambitions of our private fantasies - all these collide comically and tragically. Here, the far right marries the far left, and the sacred is undone by the profane. Gewanter's ironic vision pulls together details from science, history, philosophy, the disappearing dailies, and the emotional life of an engaged and singular mind into poems on the move with tense rhythms, rich correspondences, and daring hairpin turns. "War Bird" gives the lie to the shining moral complacencies of the homefront. Unsettling yet radiant, this collection is a book for troubled times, for what Whitman called in '1861', our 'hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year'.

About the Author
David Gewanter is professor of English at Georgetown University. He is coeditor of Robert Lowell's Collected Poems and the author of In the Belly and The Sleep of Reason, the latter two published by the University of Chicago Press.

Reviews
"The Phoenix Poets list contains a number of poets currently on my list of favorites. This is a strong, vital series that has given voice to some of the best voices in American poetry today." - Billy Collins "A strong collection from a writer who seems to possess that most curious and necessary of literary attributes - a moral vision." - New York Times"



Book Information
ISBN 9780226289786
Author David Gewanter
Format Paperback
Page Count 88
Imprint University of Chicago Press
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 113g
Dimensions(mm) 22mm * 14mm * 1mm