Two-Star General

By Grey Held

Two-Star General brings his father, the general, and himself, the poet, eloquently to life in poems that crackle with pungent language and compelling images that pull us in, and evoke fairly their conflicting attitudes and differing temperaments. The first section, in the general's voice, contrasts his humanity "On the army cot, I kiss/the palm of my own hand, wishing it were my sweetheart," with the aggressive nature needed when training men to kill: "To some stabbing comes naturally . . . friendly/ yardage of intestines unfurling like ferns." In Held's voice, Section 2 gives us the poet growing up, coming to understand himself and the general more deeply. "The Draft" reveals the poet's uncertainty, whether to go to war or protest it: "My 1A draft card burns/ like a coal in my pocket." There is forgiveness and compassion in the end: "I kneel/ to lift his frail shin,/ cradle his cracked/ heel like a single parenthesis in my lap/ . . . align/ the ribs of his white/ cotton socks, fold them down/ just once, like he was a child." These poems moved me deeply. --Allen West, author of Beirut Again (Off the Grid Press) Grey Held's Two Star General helps us remember how potent one small moment is. He unpacks moment after moment for us, and each time, in doing so, grabs readers by our shirts and yanks us up close to a precise vitality. "Pass the salt," he writes, and by the third repetition, we are inside a complex family relationship, marveling that it can be laid bare in so few lines. This is brilliant poetry, opening the reader to the rapture of being alive. --Gena Corea, author of The Mother Machine (Harpercollins)

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 098410058X
• ISBN13: 9780984100583
• Release Date: May 2012
• Publisher: Brick Road Poetry Press
• Length: 82 Pages
• Weight: 0.39 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.2" x 6.0"