Ribbons: The Gulf War - A Poem Book

In this past year of “our first war in the desert” and the “amnesiac parades” which numbed our national conscience, William Heyen kept writing how the war hurt. Far from what used to be called the front lines, himself torn with Marianne Moore's old knowledge that “there never was a war that was / not inward,” William Heyen stood watch for us all. These dark and brilliant Ribbons are, taken whole, the most self-demanding war poem of our century's death-throes. Philip Booth