Peter Sacks draws upon his life as an expatriate as well as upon his early years in South Africa, including his time spent in the military, to create a remarkably powerful book of poetry. At turns meditative and narrative, Sacks is unafraid to lay bare in vivid imagery his sense of both personal and historical losses, and his commitment to the works of mourning and of cultural repair. Even the love poems emerge from this book with the impress of both bittersweet aspiration and regret.

Peter Sacks is the author of two previous collections of poems, In These Mountains and Promised Lands, and of the acclaimed critical work The English Elegy. He is professor of English at Harvard University.