Warriors

Synopsis

The historic and domestic subjects in David Lloyd’s new collection are drawn from myth, history, popular culture, family, the animal world, and the environment. In addressing public and private conflicts and transnational borders, Warriors uses an array of forms: the sestina, the parable, the lyric, the narrative, the poem sequence.

Praise for this Book

‘David Lloyd in these poems asks us to measure our appetites, our time, and ourselves against the history and hubris of the great potentates, gods, warriors, and fathers. He sounds the limits of knowing and loving, and maps both the “North American forest of aboriginal danger” and the interior. His aim is at the heart. He is unafraid to ask the large questions of love and loyalty, mutability and awe. In these bold and essential poems he reveals the “secret markings” of creatures and returns – skillfully, subtly – to the stories of our forming.’ —Bruce Smith

‘Politically urgent, David Lloyd’s poems consider how we deal with power, information, the absurdity of fame. This book is more than enjoyable, it is necessary.’ —Robert Minhinnick

Reviews of this Book

‘Citation for David Lloyd’s co-winning entry to the Poetry Society of America’s year 2000 Robert H. Winner Memorial Award

David Lloyd’s “Sestinas for the Everyday Apocalypse” takes one of the most rigid forms – one that in most hands is clumsy and boring – turning it flexible, muscular and dramatically satisfying. Despite Lloyd’s range of variations, we have the sense of an established poetic “line” and of a working correspondence between syntax and music. More important, the best of these ten poems – above all, the final sestina – address the fearful dilemmas, our common losses and triumphs, with an unforced wisdom at once convincing and beautiful.’ —W. D. Snodgrass