Maps

John Freeman's first poetry collection charts the impact of place on human experience. In Beirut, Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Rome, and the foothills of a childhood hometown, Freeman navigates legacies of ruin and construction, illness and memory. Warm, mournful, and distinctly urban, Maps offers a compassionate perspective from the experience of one American embroiled in empire.

From "You Are Here:"

The city grinds
its molars at night, carefully mined
explosions boring cavities beneath
Manhattan, wh...