Mothers Over Nangarhar (eBook)

Pamela Hart is writer in residence at the Katonah Museum of Art where she teaches and manages an arts-in-education program called Thinking Through the Arts. She was awarded an NEA poetry fellowship in 2013. She recently received the Brian Turner Literary Arts prize for poetry. Her poems have been published in a variety of journals including the Southern Humanities Review, Bellevue Literary Review and Drunken Boat. Toadlily Press published her chapbook, The End of the Body. She is poetry editor and mentor for the Afghan Women’s Writing Project.

CONTENTS

TitlePage
War Partita4
Cities & Signs & War6
River of Painted Rocks7
War Games8
Flynn’s Pond9
To the Person Who10
At the Shooting Range11
Women & War Sestina12
The Cut13
In the Red Cross Parking Lot14
Sometimes We Talk About Nothing15
The Shawl16
The Matins Project17

II
Contour Drawing19
Museum20
Land Navigation21
Birds Rising22
How to Make a Diorama23
The Women24
Graces Watches the News25
During War We Email Our Soldiers26
In the Car27
Globe Skimmer28
Numerous Gray Areas29
In Which I Talk to the Mother of Crazy Horse30
Landay31
Praise Song32
Exhalation33

III
Field Notes from Home35
Some Principles of Return38
Kevlar Poem39
Soldier Undated World War I40
Rules of Engagement41
The Map is not the Territory42
The Ruby Ring43
As Thetis44

IV
Looking at Monet’s Water Lilies46
On the Orange Jumpsuit47
CONTENTS

TitlePage

War Stories50
My Soldier51
Night Vision52
Over Nangarhar53
Drone Song54
Private Jonathon Lee Gifford’s Mother55
Kevlar Poem II56
Regarding the Improvised Explosive Device57
Negative Capability59
Birds Gather on Empty Ground60

V
Tea With the Vietcong Soldier’s Wife62
Before After63
Everything is Everywhere64
Obon65
Stray Dog Story66
Not the Same67
Memorial 68
M16/ M469
On the Soldier’s Birthday70
Jalalabad71
Transmigration72