Nothing to Write Home About: Poems (Pitt Poetry Series)

The collection draws on the genres of reportage, travelogue, family history, and a philosophical reflection on war's ecstatic, frenzied humanity. Rather than focus on the familiar formula "war is hell," it aims to capture a feeling of wonder at the resilience and persistence of war as a form of human activity; the sense of intensity and purpose it generates; and its compositional recurrence through history and family history. Central to the collection is an examination of the process – often unconscious and involuntary – of an editing of memory that makes survival bearable despite its cognitive and spiritual costs. The poetic narrative weaves together seemingly disparate themes, exploring their interconnectedness: the logic of occupation, displacement, and extraction; the war over territories, natural and human resources, minerals and raw materials; the genocidal violence, mass population transfers, state-organized famine, terror, and other strategies of population control; the desire for immortality, which accounts for sexual reproduction in mortal animals, but also compels individuals to engage in philosophy, create art, and wage wars.