Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry 2023 Then the War and Selected Poems, 2007–2020 is two books in one: a representative selection from seven of Carl Phillipss innovative earlier collections and a complete new book of poems, providing a powerful introduction to European readers. A seemingly gentle but resolute attention to the things of this world evokes the joyful and painful elements in the contemporary human condition, characterised by loneliness and an unquenchable thirst for love. He is a poet who knows the rules and bends or breaks them, a master of syntax and prosody, avoiding convention and pursuing the lines of desire.
In a starred review of this book, Publishers Weekly said, These lyrically rich, insightful poems are full of palpable aching [...] and a human urge to understand. This remarkable compendium is a testament to the spirit of Phillipss work.
Carl Phillips is the author of 16 books of poetry, most recently Then the War: And Selected Poems 2007-2020 (Carcanet, 2022), which won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. Phillips has also written three prose books, most recently My Trade Is Mystery: Seven Meditations from a Life in Writing (Yale University Press, 2022). After more than thirty years of teaching at Washington University in St. Louis, he lives on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
* First UK publication from an acclaimed US poet, one of the outstanding lyric poets of our time * Includes a selection from earlier books this prolific poet has published over the past two decades, a selection from recent work in pamphlets, and a complete new book: And Then the War * New poems, written in a time of rising racial conflict in the United States, take another step of self-discovery for the poet * He is Professor of English and of African and African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also teaches in the Creative Writing Program
Then the War, is a forest-like network of linguistic relationships... ideas are turned over at different angles and that way gather complexity and momentum. Phillips operates in an altogether superior league. Carol Rumens, The Poetry Review
...a poet whose art is among the best representations we have of the modern mind in all its wonder and melancholy uncertainty. Jesse Nathan, McSweeneys
The 208 pages form a wonderfully compendious introduction to this major US poet. For those who have admired his work in the three decades since his debut, they are glowing confirmation that, as he enters his 60s, Phillips is writing better than ever ... a single project of the utmost immediacy. Fiona Sampson, The Guardian
The writing dazzles with transcendent metaphors, complex connections and linguistic flourishes Washington Post
