Rooms and Fields

Dramatic Monologues from the War in Bosnia

Lee Peterson

• Publisher: The Kent State University Press
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781612774138
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Poesia americana

Winner of the 2003 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize

"These poems are full of surprises: the gods talk; ancient authors talk; the dictionary talks; very memorably, the bridge over the Drina River, roughly between Bosnia and Serbia, speaks two haunting poems. The dead talk, wolves talk, a teacher talks, with a chorus. Sometimes I like to imagine this long poem being staged. What the music would be! Who would do the sets! What languages...
Lee Peterson's Rooms and Fields: Dramatic Monologues from the War in Bosnia doesn't have a single wasted breath; its sense of necessity never lets up; I always feel that the people and animals and landscapes being written about are being honored. The work is compassionate and single-mindedly alive to its high purpose. What a rare thing it is to find the meeting of historical, political, and poetic wisdom."
— Jean Valentine, Judge

Rooms and Fields is history not simply documented and explored but also deeply felt. A poetic inquiry, its concerns are uniquely and fundamentally intimate. Compassion drives this collection of spare and gracious poems.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Note to Reader
• Rooms
• The Bridge
• Fields
• Epilogue
• Notes and Bibliography
• Acknowledgments