This Connection of Everyone with Lungs

“Spahr's sprawling paean to humankind is by turns spiritual and political, philosophical and practical. Few books attempt this sort of range, and fewer still succeed as dramatically as does this one. No corner of the globe is left unexplored in this ambitious, emotionally-generous exhortation for Homo sapiens to become a more fully realized species. Those who worry that contemporary poetry has lowered its sights from the peaks of previous epochs—opting for form and technique over the grandeur of the human imagination—can read this book and be heartened.”

— Huffington Post

“In long prose-poem sequences, Spahr approaches a now overly addressed topic [September 11] in a surprising manner. She succeeds in blending emotional reactions to the attack with political tracts on American imperialism, using form and language to revitalize the debate. With a poet’s touch, she takes the reader on a breathless litany of lists, images, and nightmare visions that somehow, in their rapid horror, lead to salvation and hope for the future.”

— Bloomsbury Review

“Innovative, incantatory, politically charged and decidedly accessible.”

— Publishers Weekly

“Juliana Spahr has moved away from her previous immersion in predictable language poetry to write about he reality of a nation after the tragedy of September 11, 2001. In long prose-poem sequences, Spahr approaches a now overly addressed topic in a surprising manner.”

— Bloomsbury Review