Mothers Over Nangarhar

By Pamela Hart

NEA Fellowship recipient; Pamela is well connected to military family audience; Documentary-style war narrative with unique focus not on the war front but on the home front; Excellent candidate for course adoption; Situated in current events; Kathryn A. Morton Prize Winner, selected by Rowan Ricardo Phillips

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sarabande Books
• Release date: Jan 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781946448279

Pamela Hart

Pamela Hart is an award-winning, bestselling author of more than 40 books. She writes the Poppy McGowan mystery series as well as historical novels; The Charleston Scandal is her most recent historical story, set in 1920s London. As Pamela Freeman, she is well-known as a beloved children's author and fantasy writer. Her most recent children's book is a non-fiction picture book, Dry to Dry: The Seasons of Kakadu. Her adult fantasy series, the Castings Trilogy, ended with the award-winning Ember and Ash. To be kept up to date about the next Poppy McGowan story, you can subscribe to her newsletter at pamela-hart.com/newsletter; you even get a free story!

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MOTHERS OVER NANGARHAR

Copyright © 2018 by Pamela Hart

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hart, Pamela, author.

Title: Mothers over Nangarhar : poems / Pamela Hart.

Description: First edition. | Louisville, KY : Sarabande Books, 2018.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017058703 (print) | LCCN 2017059930 (e-book)

ISBN 9781946448279 (e-book) | ISBN 9781946448262 (pbk. : acid-free paper)

Classification: LCC PS3608.A7866 (e-book) | LCC PS3608.A7866 A6 2018 (print) DDC 811/.6—DC23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017058703

Cover and interior design by Alban Fischer.

Cover image © prill/iStock

Manufactured in Canada.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Sarabande Books is a nonprofit literary organization.

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Kentucky Arts Council, the state arts agency, supports Sarabande Books with state tax dollars and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

FOR MY FAMILY

Arriving from always, you’ll go away everywhere

—RIMBAUD

CONTENTS

Introduction

War Partita

I

Cities & Signs & War

River of Painted Rocks

War Games

Flynn’s Pond

To the Person Who Asked about Negotiating Differing Perspectives with My Son If There Are Any While Supporting His Choice

At the Shooting Range

Women & War Sestina

The Cut

In the Red Cross Parking Lot after a Meeting on PTSD

Sometimes We Talk about Nothing

The Shawl

Landays for Alaha

The Matins Project

II

The Women

Grace Watches the News and Is Unable to Sleep

During War We Email Our Soldiers

Contour Drawing

Museum

Land Navigation

In the Car

Numerous Gray Areas

Praise Song

III

Looking at Monet’s Water Lilies

On the Orange Jumpsuit

My Soldier

War Stories

Birds Rising Are a Sign of Ambush

Night Vision

Mothers Over Nangarhar

Drone Song

Private Jonathan Lee Gifford’s Mother

Kevlar Poem

Regarding the Improvised Explosive Device

Black Ice

American Mother

Birds Gather on Empty Ground

IV

Drone Mother

Field Notes from Home

Kevlar Poem II

Soldier Undated World War I

Rules of Engagement

The Map Is Not the Territory

Coming Home

As Thetis

V

Everything Is Everywhere

Obon

Tea with the Viet Cong Soldier’s Wife

Stray Dog Story

Not the Same

Memorial

M16/M4

On the Soldier’s Birthday

Jalalabad

Transmigration

Post Script

Notes

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION

A poem, by its very nature, is an