This
powerful new
collection of Yusef Komunyakaa’s poetry delves into an age of war and conflict, both global and internal, racial and sexual. “Sweetheart, was I
talking war in my sleep / again?” he asks, and the
question is hardly moot: “Sometimes I hold you like Achilles’ / shield,” and indeed all relationships, in this telling, are sites of
violence and battle. His line is longer and looser than in
Taboo and
Talking Dirty to the Gods, and in long poems like “The
Autobiography of My Alter Ego” he sounds almost breathless, an exhausted, desperate prophet.
Warhorses is the stunning work of a Pulitzer Prize–winning poet who never ceases to challenge and delight his readers.
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