{"product_id":"on-the-shores-of-welcome-home","title":"On the Shores of Welcome Home","description":"\u003ch4\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWinner of the Isabella Gardner Award\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn this Isabella Gardner Award-winning collection of poems, Bruce Weigl meditates on the ghosts and the grace one encounters in life’s second act. A celebrated poet and veteran of the Vietnam War, Weigl offers a nuanced sense of aging as a departure and death as a returning home. With a sage’s eye for mindfulness and a soldier’s longing for the country where he served, Weigl’s poems reveal the long scars left by Vietnam and the new possibilities one encounters in the wake of life-altering experiences.   \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eFrom \"The Hà Nội Winds Bringing Winter to the Old-World Elegy\"\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe soon to be bare winter branches\u003cbr\u003edon’t exactly tremble—that’s a human thing—\u003cbr\u003ebut they move in the wind of my waiting\u003cbr\u003ein what looks like the shiver that love brings\u003cbr\u003eto your neurons, right down to the cells\u003cbr\u003ewho are happy for some company, after all.\u003cbr\u003eI could sit out here all day and watch the world\u003cbr\u003eleave us behind, and not have a single regret\u003cbr\u003eexcept for not living even harder and faster\u003cbr\u003ethan I did, giving up to immutable green space\u003cbr\u003emy body, and then later, my soul down by the river\u003cbr\u003ewhose name I may not utter, please\u003cbr\u003edon’t make me tell you what happened there, the bare\u003cbr\u003ebranches are enough in their trembling like a shiver\u003cbr\u003eto say all that needs to be said. The room I’m in\u003cbr\u003eis getting smaller, with every faded moment’s life,\u003cbr\u003eand we know what that means. Your heart may beat\u003cbr\u003ein time with the umbrella’s flapping in patio wind,\u003cbr\u003ebut it doesn’t mean you belong anywhere;\u003cbr\u003eit doesn’t mean you’re connected to anything that could save you\u003cbr\u003eor pull you back into the flock of care we imagine. No.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003ePraise for Bruce Weigl\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Weigl’s personal reckoning with trauma is juxtaposed against the title poem’s polemic against war, a lengthy plea for empathy and tolerance that establishes war, police brutality, mass shootings, and anti-immigrant sentiments as intricately connected through a web of violence Americans have been taught to accept as necessary.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“All of Bruce Weigl's poems are of high quality and all should be purchased for any collection of literature dealing with the Vietnam War.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe VVA Veteran\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Bruce Weigl’s \u003ci\u003eOn the Shores of Welcome Home\u003c\/i\u003e deals with life and death matters, embracing earthy questions but always sighting a bead of true light. The mind and flesh of the soldier, of the survivor, of the seeker is laid bare as brotherly love. Weigl is always in at least two worlds at once—present and past; here and beyond. He poses questions of motion and emotion without easy Western answers. In fact, there’s nothing in this map of naked truths that’s easy. And, at times, this speaker of lyric reckoning holds himself accountable for the moments he said ‘I dare you.’ That is, \u003ci\u003eOn the Shores of Welcome Home\u003c\/i\u003e underscores how we are indeed connected—responsible for and to each other. This collection pinpoints days and nights of everyday life under fire, with penetrating grace notes.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e —Yusef Komunyakaa, author of \u003ci\u003eNeon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Few poets of any generation have written so searingly of the trauma of war, inscribing its wound while refusing the fragile suture of redemption. In this and in the breadth of his accomplishment, Bruce Weigl is one of the most important poets of our time.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—Carolyn Forché, author of \u003cem\u003eWhat You Have Heard is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“‘I don't think it's my place to breathe, Mr. Night,’ writes Bruce Weigl, while giving us a sweeping, beautiful collection of poems that breathes deeply as it takes us from Ha Noi to Ohio via elegies and lyrics that are urgent and unsparing in their clarity. In this time of crisis, even in his own uncertainties (‘a sky in my head tonight...I don’t know what it wants’), Weigl always finds the lyric pulse, a flame of our moment.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—Ilya Kaminsky, author of \u003cem\u003eDeaf Republic\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Bruce Weigl’s unique verbal music is a song indivisible from its experiential roots. Events of childhood in the industrial Midwest, of young manhood flung unwitting into another land and culture, of the years of ongoing pain, of rare joy, of striving and illumination, are one fabric, no episodic.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—Denise Levertov\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch6\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h6\u003e\n\u003ch6\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e© BOA Editions, Ltd. 2019\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h6\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":22782323490897,"sku":"9781942683896","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/OnTheShores_FC-WEB.jpg?v=1556109138","url":"https:\/\/shop.boaeditions.org\/products\/on-the-shores-of-welcome-home","provider":"Boa Editions","version":"1.0","type":"link"}