The Warrior: A Mother's Story of a Son at War
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A heartwrenching and powerful memoir in verse from a mother grappling with the reality of her son at war in Iraq Frances Richey's son, Ben, whom she raised by herself, graduated from the West Point Military Academy in 1998. He became a Green Beret, and then went for two tours of duty in Iraq, often on missions that were so secret that he had to remain incommunicado from everyone, including his mother. The Warrior is an urgent and intensely personal exploration of what a mother is feeling as her only son goes off to war, as she says goodbye to him, misses him, prays for him, and waits for him to come home. At the book's heart lies a mother's love for her son-a son from whom she feels distant, both literally and metaphorically, for she is opposed to the war in Iraq, but nonetheless realizes that she needs to understand, support, and accept the choices her son has made in his life. A poignant, accessible, and emotionally arresting book told in twenty-eight poems, The Warrior speaks to the world of those who wait while their loved ones are in combat or in dangerous circumstances. It is also concerned with the love and pain that constitute close relationships, in particular that between a mother and her son. Richey gives readers a window into a world they might not know, but a world that nonetheless touches all our lives. And The Warrior will bring comfort to those who have waited, and are waiting now. Whatever readers feel about the war, all will want to read this moving work for its power and the universal emotions of familial love it portrays with piercing insight. About the Author Frances Richey was born in Williamson, West Virginia, and grew up in Charleston, West Virginia. She is a graduate of the University of Kentucky. After working in the business world for almost two decades, she left to teach yoga and write. She is the author of one previous collection of poetry, The Burning Point, which won the White Pine Press Poetry Prize and was released in 2004.The New York Times - David OrrThe Warrior is the poetic equivalent of a movie like "The Shawshank Redemption": unsurprising and sentimental on the one hand, likable and competently constructed on the other. Those last two qualities, however, are enough to make this collection one of the best mass-market poetry books in years.
The Aztec Empire 3The Barn Swallows 5The Movers 7Letters 10The Book of Secrets 12The Warrior 14In a Time of War 18Dream of the Lost Son 21Kill School 25Waiting 27One Week Before Deployment 31Packing 31To the Helmet 33His Gun 34Sightseeing 37I Had Promised Not to Cry 39Inventory 40Thetis 43Mourning in Sadr City 47Home on Leave 48He Tell Each Story 51School for Commandos 52A Walk Through the Seventh Regiment Armory 54Cab Ride to Chelsea 56The Worst Thing 57Christmas Dinner with My Son in Arlington Heights 58E-Mail from a Secret Location in Iraq: Re: The Puppies 63Time Out 66The Powerlifter 67Thor 69Incommunicado 72Collisions 74Four Fragments from the Hall of the Madonnas 76The Canal 78Notes 81
