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Then the war : and selected poems, 2007-2020 / Carl Phillips.

by Phillips, Carl, 1959- author.

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New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023.

American poetry.

9780374607678 (paperback) :

209 pages ; 23 cm

First paperback edition.

Then the war -- 1 -- Invasive species -- Of California -- That the gods must rest -- The enchanted bluff -- Little shields, in starlight -- Morning in the bowl of night -- Blue-winged warbler -- Not wild, merely free -- He didn't raise hand or voice -- In a field, at sunset -- The difficulty -- In a low voice, slowly -- Fixed shadow, moving water -- Somewhere, right now, a hawk -- Sing a darkness -- Among the trees -- 2 -- While night still keeps us -- Then the war -- As the rain comes down harder -- Something to believe in -- The blue door -- Rough surf in moonlight -- Like the sweet wet earth itself -- On coming close -- Electric -- Soft western light -- Everything all of it -- Blurry finally in too soon each of us -- Only portions of the map still legibly survive -- Archery -- Initial descent -- To autumn -- Of the shining underlife -- Anywhere like peace -- Entire known world so far -- Night comes and passes over me -- This far in -- Selected poems, 2007-2020 -- From speak low -- Speak low -- Mirror, window, mirror -- Captivity -- In a perfect world -- Distortion -- Storm -- Now in our most ordinary voices -- The raft -- From double shadow -- Fascination -- Continuous until we stop -- The grass not being flesh, nor flesh the grass -- The need for dreaming -- Almost tenderly -- Glory on -- Civilization -- Immaculate each leaf, and every flower -- Heaven and earth -- From silverchest -- So the mind like a gate swings open -- After the afterlife -- Black swan on water, in a little rain -- Neon -- Your body down in gold -- Anyone who had a heart -- Dominion -- But waves, they scatter -- Silverchest -- From reconnaissance -- Reconnaissance -- The darker powers -- Steeple -- Capella -- For long to hold -- Foliage -- The strong by their stillness -- Faintly, with falling stars -- Spring -- From wild is the wind -- Swimming -- Brothers in arms -- Musculature -- Not the waves as they make their way forward -- Gold leaf -- What I see is the light falling all around us -- If you go away -- For it felt like power -- Monomoy -- Wild is the wind -- The sea, the forest -- From pale colors in a tall field -- On being asked to be more specific when it comes to longing -- Pale colors in a tall field -- For nothing tender about it -- Dirt being dirt -- A little closer though, if you can, for what got lost here -- Yet no less grateful -- Is it true all legends once were rumors -- Overheard, under a dark enchantment -- If it must be winter -- Defiance -- Star map with action figures -- And if I fall -- Dangerous only when disturbed -- Wake up -- On triumph -- Unbridled -- We turn here -- To lie down. To wear nothing at all. -- Reasonable doubt -- Fine -- And swept all visible signs away -- Honest in which not gently -- Self -- Soundtrack for the frame of winter -- Star map with action figures -- My monster -- All the love you've got.

Carl Phillips has aptly described his work as an "ongoing quest"; Then the War is the next step in that meaningful process of self-discovery for both the poet and his reader. The new poems, written in a time of rising racial conflict in the United States, with its attendant violence and uncertainty, find Phillips entering deeper into the landscape he has made his own: a forest of intimacy, queerness, and moral inquiry, where the farther we go, the more difficult it is to remember why or where we started. Then the War includes a generous selection of Phillips's work from the previous thirteen years, as well as his recent lyric prose memoir, "Among the Trees," and his chapbook, Star Map with Action Figures. Ultimately, Phillips refuses pessimism, arguing for tenderness and human connection as profound forces for revolution and conjuring a spell against indifference and the easy escapes of nostalgia. Then the War is luminous testimony to the power of self-reckoning and to Carl Phillips as an ever-changing, necessary voice in contemporary poetry. --back cover.

Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

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