One of the firstΒ poetry collectionsΒ in the world to explore the epic tragedy of the Iraq War. Told from the perspectives of Iraquis and Americans alike, it’s a collection that expresses the anxieties and aspirations of all those who resist the dark forces shaking our world.
Using four distinctive voices, and constructed almost as a thriller, Roberta Lowingβs 55 poems re-create the devastating invasion and years of betrayal and heart-break β and moments of hope and illumination β endured by Iraqi civilians and American soldiers.
RuinΒ pays tribute to the Twentieth Centuryβs greatest humanist poets and resonates with the influences of Neruda, Levertov, Celan and more.
This work is of our time for our time, a collection which expresses the anxieties and aspirations of all those who resist the dark forces shaking our world.
IP (Interactive Publications Pty Ltd) –
Nothing like this springs up overnight, but this did seem to, as if already fully formed, in cold-eyed fury over another war in Iraq; the voices and the blend of narrative and documentary and stark poetry are so right that you have to think that it had to be. Lowingβs is more than a talent to be reckoned with: for the honest eye, the anger, the compassion, and the lyric crystal they are so often and so memorably caught in, itβs something to be learned from.
β David Brooks, Editor, Southerly