Civil War Poetry

In Wade in the Water, Tracy K. Smith boldly ties America's contemporary moment both to our nation's fraught founding history and to a sense of the spirit, the everlasting. These are poems of sliding scale: some capture a flicker of song or memory; some collage an array of documents and voices; and some push past the known world into the haunted, the holy. Smith's signature voice - inquisitive, lyrical, and wry - turns over what it means to be a citizen, a mother, and an artist in a culture arbitrated by wealth, men, and violence.

Seventeen iconic poems from World War One, including: Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Deorum Est"; "In Flanders Fields" by John McRae; "Counter Attack" by Siegfried Sassoon; Rupert Brook's "The Soldier"; and many more that bring the horrors of the Great War vividly to life through the eyes of those living them.

In the Last Book of Baghdad, Sirois explores a world where, under desperate conditions, a lost collection of poems might be able to save a person's life. In The Last Book of Baghdad, we see Nisreen Abid robbed of two beloved things: Al Mutanabbi Street—the literary hub of Baghdad—and her husband. With Al Mutanabbi Street in ruins, Nisreen tricks a book printer to help her locate her kidnapped husband while navigating the deadly city. Baghdad is burning out of control. Little does she know, the book she uses as ransom to get her husband back will be the most important book of her life. ...

Not many people have influenced the world we live in today in quite the same way as Abraham Lincoln. A visionary, scholar, and gentle soul. Simple qualities we all have within us, but few use these qualities to benefit mankind in quite the same way as Abe did. Centuries after his passing into spirit, we still remember his name, his work, and his legacy and will continue to do so for centuries to come. This short trilogy of verse I feel best capture his essence and the feeling of people who lived with and knew him.