New Life

‘These poems are gorgeous and ironic and heartbreaking and angry and uplifting and tough-minded and compassionate and completely amazing. New Life is a triumph. Art wins, war loses.’ – Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried

‘These are powerful and original poems. I don’t know anything like them. They are terrifying and beautiful. Sometimes terrifyingly beautiful. Don’t leave this book on a doily in your parlor. Instead, nail it to the door of every church, mosque, temple, and government office in the world. This is the poetry of courage.’ – Thomas Lux


‘With a reporter’s zeal, in poems marked by crisp speech and a piercing, melancholy humor, O’Brien reminds us that the facts of war, suicide, illness, family, and much else remain largely unintelligible until they are redeemed for us by poetry’s living truth.’ – David Yezzi

‘Part of what makes this volume so strong is that though there is an unforced order to the pieces, and a basic coherence, each stands alone, demanding, without being a harangue, to be heard, to be absorbed, and not to stand idly by in our world so in need of informed citizenship. Each one of the poems here is more necessary than the last.’ – Barbara Berman, The Rumpus