D. R. James’s value to us lies in how he faces the idea of now with all its uncertainties, complications, and mundane realities, and then, as if driven by a missionary compulsion, he makes elegant, moving, and insightful poems about this “nowness” of death, divorce, war, and much else. This is the immediacy and compelling force of Why War. James has no answers, but he has a sharp wit, a capacity for emotional risk, and a contagious delight in language. Give me that, any day.
—Kwame Dawes, author of Duppy Conqueror: New and Selected Poems
Rated 5 out of 5
D. R. James –
Why War has no question mark, and that is no minor matter, turning the title into something like a Zen koan. This poetry probes the “why war” we instinctively wage with life. We demand answers, crave reasons why, especially regarding undeserved suffering. This collection arcs from the family legacies of war, through the painful dissolution of a marriage, and finally presents a speaker who is “beyond compliance, beyond resistance,” the clarity of truly being in the present. This is what can happen when we wrestle the koan that life itself presents us. This is what happens when we follow the path through these beautiful, moving poems.
—Fred Marchant, author of The Looking House and Full Moon Boat
D. R. James –
D. R. James’s value to us lies in how he faces the idea of now with all its uncertainties, complications, and mundane realities, and then, as if driven by a missionary compulsion, he makes elegant, moving, and insightful poems about this “nowness” of death, divorce, war, and much else. This is the immediacy and compelling force of Why War. James has no answers, but he has a sharp wit, a capacity for emotional risk, and a contagious delight in language. Give me that, any day.
—Kwame Dawes, author of Duppy Conqueror: New and Selected Poems
D. R. James –
Why War has no question mark, and that is no minor matter, turning the title into something like a Zen koan. This poetry probes the “why war” we instinctively wage with life. We demand answers, crave reasons why, especially regarding undeserved suffering. This collection arcs from the family legacies of war, through the painful dissolution of a marriage, and finally presents a speaker who is “beyond compliance, beyond resistance,” the clarity of truly being in the present. This is what can happen when we wrestle the koan that life itself presents us. This is what happens when we follow the path through these beautiful, moving poems.
—Fred Marchant, author of The Looking House and Full Moon Boat