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Dreaming the End of War
This gripping suite of twelve dreams, infused with the conflict along the border of Mexico and the United States, traces humanity’s addiction to violence and killing—from boys stepping on ants to men shooting animals, men shooting women, men shooting enemies. The Dreams begin in a desert landscape where poverty and wealth grate against each other, and the ever present war becomes “as invisible as the desert sands we trample on.” The dreams, however, move toward a greater peace with Sáenz providing an unforgettable reading experience. From “The Fourth Families and Flags and Revenge”: I don’t believe a flag
is important
enough to kiss—
or even burn. Some men would hate me
enough to kill me
if they read these words. “Rage,” Sáenz said in an interview, “must be a component of any writer’s life. But this rage must also be contained—otherwise our very bodies will become chaos—our minds will become chaos. We need order.” Sáenz finds that order in poems, transforming his rage into something “more beautiful and gracious and forgiving.” Poet and novelist Benjamin Sáenz has written 10 books of poetry and prose, most recently In Perfect Light (HarperCollins). He was a Catholic priest, doing missionary and charity work in London, Tanzania, and the barrio parishes of El Paso, Texas. Upon leaving the priesthood, he was awarded a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. He teaches in the MFA program at University of Texas, El Paso.
is important
enough to kiss—
or even burn. Some men would hate me
enough to kill me
if they read these words. “Rage,” Sáenz said in an interview, “must be a component of any writer’s life. But this rage must also be contained—otherwise our very bodies will become chaos—our minds will become chaos. We need order.” Sáenz finds that order in poems, transforming his rage into something “more beautiful and gracious and forgiving.” Poet and novelist Benjamin Sáenz has written 10 books of poetry and prose, most recently In Perfect Light (HarperCollins). He was a Catholic priest, doing missionary and charity work in London, Tanzania, and the barrio parishes of El Paso, Texas. Upon leaving the priesthood, he was awarded a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. He teaches in the MFA program at University of Texas, El Paso.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2006
2 people are currently reading
568 people want to read
About the author
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
38 books15.8k followersBenjamin Alire Sáenz (born 16 August 1954) is an award-winning American poet, novelist and writer of children's books.
He was born at Old Picacho, New Mexico, the fourth of seven children, and was raised on a small farm near Mesilla, New Mexico. He graduated from Las Cruces High School in 1972. That fall, he entered St. Thomas Seminary in Denver, Colorado where he received a B.A. degree in Humanities and Philosophy in 1977. He studied Theology at the University of Louvain in Leuven, Belgium from 1977 to 1981. He was a priest for a few years in El Paso, Texas before leaving the order.
In 1985, he returned to school, and studied English and Creative Writing at the University of Texas at El Paso where he earned an M.A. degree in Creative Writing. He then spent a year at the University of Iowa as a PhD student in American Literature. A year later, he was awarded a Wallace E. Stegner fellowship. While at Stanford University under the guidance of Denise Levertov, he completed his first book of poems, Calendar of Dust, which won an American Book Award in 1992. He entered the Ph.D. program at Stanford and continued his studies for two more years. Before completing his Ph.D., he moved back to the border and began teaching at the University of Texas at El Paso in the bilingual MFA program.
His first novel, Carry Me Like Water was a saga that brought together the Victorian novel and the Latin American tradition of magic realism and received much critical attention.
In The Book of What Remains (Copper Canyon Press, 2010), his fifth book of poems, he writes to the core truth of life's ever-shifting memories. Set along the Mexican border, the contrast between the desert's austere beauty and the brutality of border politics mirrors humanity's capacity for both generosity and cruelty.
In 2005, he curated a show of photographs by Julian Cardona.
He continues to teach in the Creative Writing Department at the University of Texas at El Paso.
He was born at Old Picacho, New Mexico, the fourth of seven children, and was raised on a small farm near Mesilla, New Mexico. He graduated from Las Cruces High School in 1972. That fall, he entered St. Thomas Seminary in Denver, Colorado where he received a B.A. degree in Humanities and Philosophy in 1977. He studied Theology at the University of Louvain in Leuven, Belgium from 1977 to 1981. He was a priest for a few years in El Paso, Texas before leaving the order.
In 1985, he returned to school, and studied English and Creative Writing at the University of Texas at El Paso where he earned an M.A. degree in Creative Writing. He then spent a year at the University of Iowa as a PhD student in American Literature. A year later, he was awarded a Wallace E. Stegner fellowship. While at Stanford University under the guidance of Denise Levertov, he completed his first book of poems, Calendar of Dust, which won an American Book Award in 1992. He entered the Ph.D. program at Stanford and continued his studies for two more years. Before completing his Ph.D., he moved back to the border and began teaching at the University of Texas at El Paso in the bilingual MFA program.
His first novel, Carry Me Like Water was a saga that brought together the Victorian novel and the Latin American tradition of magic realism and received much critical attention.
In The Book of What Remains (Copper Canyon Press, 2010), his fifth book of poems, he writes to the core truth of life's ever-shifting memories. Set along the Mexican border, the contrast between the desert's austere beauty and the brutality of border politics mirrors humanity's capacity for both generosity and cruelty.
In 2005, he curated a show of photographs by Julian Cardona.
He continues to teach in the Creative Writing Department at the University of Texas at El Paso.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
February 4, 2026
Another beautiful collection by Benjamin Alire Sáenz.
"I understand loss and how a bullet cuts through a family and how that bullet becomes the air we live and breathe. I understand these shadows, and how these shadows become a politics and how that politics becomes a flag and how that flag becomes the only house we live in."
"I think that killing has been made too easy - it has always been too easy. I think you should be forced to know the name of a man before you spill his blood, know the name of his wife and the names of each of her daughters and sons [...] I try to imagine the names of all who have been killed. I try to imagine their gods. I try to imagine their gardens. I try to imagine their kitchens, the foods they cooked, the spices, the table, the prayers, the smells of a living house."
"I have stopped hoping all this will end. Killing in the name of the land is a habit, an art, a discipline, the great addiction of every civilization that has ever had any claim to greatness."
"Have we fallen in love with the apocalypse?"
"I understand loss and how a bullet cuts through a family and how that bullet becomes the air we live and breathe. I understand these shadows, and how these shadows become a politics and how that politics becomes a flag and how that flag becomes the only house we live in."
"I think that killing has been made too easy - it has always been too easy. I think you should be forced to know the name of a man before you spill his blood, know the name of his wife and the names of each of her daughters and sons [...] I try to imagine the names of all who have been killed. I try to imagine their gods. I try to imagine their gardens. I try to imagine their kitchens, the foods they cooked, the spices, the table, the prayers, the smells of a living house."
"I have stopped hoping all this will end. Killing in the name of the land is a habit, an art, a discipline, the great addiction of every civilization that has ever had any claim to greatness."
"Have we fallen in love with the apocalypse?"
February 5, 2009
Dreaming the End of War by Benjamin Alire Saenz (Copper Canyon Press) ISBN: I-55659-239-6
The main (and most obvious) theme in Saenz’s book, Dreaming the End of War, is, of course, war. And sure, there are flashy explosions and limbs oozing blood along the way (“made holy//by the blood of the bullets/that ripped them apart”) and there’s good, old-fashioned blood-lust mixed in, too (“when I was a boy, my violence/was sweet, uncomplicated,” “and in my heart I killed/rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat//my brothers more than once”). But it’s more complex than gore of battle and childhood fascination with inflicting pain, the book illustrates the different definitions of war through the poet’s eyes. Saenz tried to find the boundaries of war (“Most of us who speak/of justice and wars/have never bothered to examine/Augustine’s words”); he tries to observe the flesh of war – pulling it apart, breathing in its stench, and finding the shrapnel of himself embedded in it. When his hands are wet and dripping from the blood, be boldly shouts, “We live by the sword.Then/damn it all to hell, let us die/by the sword. And cut/the whining. Be a man.”
Saenz, himself, is honest with the reader, and maybe even too humble with the words: “I have never killed/another man. I don’t know/if men die graceful as birds. To kill/a man. Like my uncle, I have never/been to war,” and “Because I do not live in the shadow of guns,” but most stunning is “I don’t believe a flag/is important/ enough to kiss-/or even burn.//Some men would hate me/enough to kill me/if they read these words”. Saenz, while thoughtful and down-to-earth, is painfully sympathetic. Growing up on a farm, he had witnessed all kinds of animal slaughter that horrified him and he describes this farm-life in gruesome detail to the reader (“When you first butcher a hog/you have to castrate him first”). He also describes himself haunted in the supermarket by the meat section, imagining their eyes following him around.
Saenz also heavily reflects on his heritage as a Mexican-American, realizing (and on the verge of self-deprecation) that his life is better than those of Mexicans who, trying to reach America, are “still dying. Some have/Died suffocating in box cars. Some have drowned. Some/Have been killed by vigilantes who protect us in the name/Of all that is white.” But this sentiment isn’t just towards his ancestry, but the whole world. While he thinks of guns and bullets and death, he contemplates, “I know it is easy/For me to dream these things because I am sitting in the comfort//Of my office.”
His thoughts and dreams (and, of course, limping along behind is optimism) are not new ideas, or even uncommon, but his sincerity is magnetic and his poems are straight-forward, but in no means simple or provide any easy answers.
At the end, ever reliable, is hope – trudging along like the intrepid soldier it’s created to be from Hollywood’s obligatory wrap-ups and warm after-school specials. Even when Saenz mutters, “Have we fallen in love with apocalypse?” he also prays, “I am waiting for peace to arrive./For the people of the Middle East./For America. For Mexico. For me.” His final dream is predictable, also carrying the burden of tying it all together in a spectacle much like a fireworks finale. But even if hope is expected, cliché, and it’s not one even of his strongest poems, I think it’s needed. Even if optimism is a constant conclusion, I think people need to be nudged, prodded, punched, or grappled by the lesson: hope, always hope. I could easily play the cynic and whine, “Oh, Gawd, it so over-done and unoriginal!” But it has a very rough responsibility of being a necessary reminder that within the cruelty of mankind and the blood that we shed, there is something left to dream and, somehow, there is still something worth saving in us all.
Life isn’t easy, as Saenz elaborates in Dreaming the End of War, but he gathers us with the whisper of encouragement, promising we, too, can dream that “all the wars are done” and that the Earth “having lost/all patience, rises up in its own revolution,/erasing all the lines we have carved/on her back.” We need to believe it and in it, while being willing to sacrifice and being unafraid to make a change. Saenz is right. It’s time to cut the whining and be a damned man.
The main (and most obvious) theme in Saenz’s book, Dreaming the End of War, is, of course, war. And sure, there are flashy explosions and limbs oozing blood along the way (“made holy//by the blood of the bullets/that ripped them apart”) and there’s good, old-fashioned blood-lust mixed in, too (“when I was a boy, my violence/was sweet, uncomplicated,” “and in my heart I killed/rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat//my brothers more than once”). But it’s more complex than gore of battle and childhood fascination with inflicting pain, the book illustrates the different definitions of war through the poet’s eyes. Saenz tried to find the boundaries of war (“Most of us who speak/of justice and wars/have never bothered to examine/Augustine’s words”); he tries to observe the flesh of war – pulling it apart, breathing in its stench, and finding the shrapnel of himself embedded in it. When his hands are wet and dripping from the blood, be boldly shouts, “We live by the sword.Then/damn it all to hell, let us die/by the sword. And cut/the whining. Be a man.”
Saenz, himself, is honest with the reader, and maybe even too humble with the words: “I have never killed/another man. I don’t know/if men die graceful as birds. To kill/a man. Like my uncle, I have never/been to war,” and “Because I do not live in the shadow of guns,” but most stunning is “I don’t believe a flag/is important/ enough to kiss-/or even burn.//Some men would hate me/enough to kill me/if they read these words”. Saenz, while thoughtful and down-to-earth, is painfully sympathetic. Growing up on a farm, he had witnessed all kinds of animal slaughter that horrified him and he describes this farm-life in gruesome detail to the reader (“When you first butcher a hog/you have to castrate him first”). He also describes himself haunted in the supermarket by the meat section, imagining their eyes following him around.
Saenz also heavily reflects on his heritage as a Mexican-American, realizing (and on the verge of self-deprecation) that his life is better than those of Mexicans who, trying to reach America, are “still dying. Some have/Died suffocating in box cars. Some have drowned. Some/Have been killed by vigilantes who protect us in the name/Of all that is white.” But this sentiment isn’t just towards his ancestry, but the whole world. While he thinks of guns and bullets and death, he contemplates, “I know it is easy/For me to dream these things because I am sitting in the comfort//Of my office.”
His thoughts and dreams (and, of course, limping along behind is optimism) are not new ideas, or even uncommon, but his sincerity is magnetic and his poems are straight-forward, but in no means simple or provide any easy answers.
At the end, ever reliable, is hope – trudging along like the intrepid soldier it’s created to be from Hollywood’s obligatory wrap-ups and warm after-school specials. Even when Saenz mutters, “Have we fallen in love with apocalypse?” he also prays, “I am waiting for peace to arrive./For the people of the Middle East./For America. For Mexico. For me.” His final dream is predictable, also carrying the burden of tying it all together in a spectacle much like a fireworks finale. But even if hope is expected, cliché, and it’s not one even of his strongest poems, I think it’s needed. Even if optimism is a constant conclusion, I think people need to be nudged, prodded, punched, or grappled by the lesson: hope, always hope. I could easily play the cynic and whine, “Oh, Gawd, it so over-done and unoriginal!” But it has a very rough responsibility of being a necessary reminder that within the cruelty of mankind and the blood that we shed, there is something left to dream and, somehow, there is still something worth saving in us all.
Life isn’t easy, as Saenz elaborates in Dreaming the End of War, but he gathers us with the whisper of encouragement, promising we, too, can dream that “all the wars are done” and that the Earth “having lost/all patience, rises up in its own revolution,/erasing all the lines we have carved/on her back.” We need to believe it and in it, while being willing to sacrifice and being unafraid to make a change. Saenz is right. It’s time to cut the whining and be a damned man.
July 27, 2022
I've been having a hard time reading this year. This has been particularly so with poetry books. Something in my preferences has changed the past year, as I've been writing longer poems -- I find myself wanting to read longer narrative sequences like Anne Carson's red doc or Stephen Sexton's If All the World and Love were Young. I also revisit a lot of the poems in Kostya Tsolakis's pamphlet, ephebos. More so for the direct quality of his voice -- it's simple but beautiful lines.
Dreaming the End of War is a suite of twelve longform poems regarding the nature of war, how violence plays out in our modern day. Saenz is one of my favourite Young Adult writers but I have had mixed results with his poetry. This collection however works for me, because Saenz looks both outwards and inward to record the aesthetics of violence, and isn't afraid to say when he is limited by his own experiences.
Beyond the effective parallels of language and its pleasing rhythms, I admire Saenz's ability to give himself permission to write about his life. The book has the feeling of being lived-in, a sense that is characteristic of his later novels. The long form poem also allows him to splice together meditations on his own identity as a Mexican-American, the Confederacy's influence on the American South, family vignettes and tragedies, references to Roman history, and even one of Goya's black paintings. I find this a pleasing and exciting way to write, and I will return to this poetic suite to see how Saenz breaks lines, builds stanzas, and crafts narrative arcs.
I will note in closing that Saenz's collection can read as mawkish; the final poem in the series, The Twelfth and Final Dream: A Dream of the Day, closes out a painful collection on a hopeful note. Saenz's novels are always optimistic, and here in this collection he also errs towards kindness. I enjoyed it tremendeously.
Dreaming the End of War is a suite of twelve longform poems regarding the nature of war, how violence plays out in our modern day. Saenz is one of my favourite Young Adult writers but I have had mixed results with his poetry. This collection however works for me, because Saenz looks both outwards and inward to record the aesthetics of violence, and isn't afraid to say when he is limited by his own experiences.
It was a graceful thing, to blow up
a hill of ants, to watch a bird fall
to earth. I have never killed
another man. I don't know
if men die graceful as birds. To kill
a man. Like my uncle, I have never
been to war. My knowledge
of these things is limited--though
my imagination can be as savage
as that of any other man who's ever
felt rage running through his veins...
Beyond the effective parallels of language and its pleasing rhythms, I admire Saenz's ability to give himself permission to write about his life. The book has the feeling of being lived-in, a sense that is characteristic of his later novels. The long form poem also allows him to splice together meditations on his own identity as a Mexican-American, the Confederacy's influence on the American South, family vignettes and tragedies, references to Roman history, and even one of Goya's black paintings. I find this a pleasing and exciting way to write, and I will return to this poetic suite to see how Saenz breaks lines, builds stanzas, and crafts narrative arcs.
I will note in closing that Saenz's collection can read as mawkish; the final poem in the series, The Twelfth and Final Dream: A Dream of the Day, closes out a painful collection on a hopeful note. Saenz's novels are always optimistic, and here in this collection he also errs towards kindness. I enjoyed it tremendeously.
May 9, 2009
I think this guy is so good, ways of putting things down that I can hardly believe. He write about marginalized people, seems to have read and remembered everything, but doesn't parade it. I can't do him justice, but I give him the highest rating and I learn from him. I guess he is working on a second book.
Katherine
Katherine
June 12, 2013
[4.5]
I was reading this out loud from time to time, and then my library loan ran out and I had to return it. I'll have to get it out again, though - the poems are lyrical, frank, devastating yet hopeful. I mean to read more.
I was reading this out loud from time to time, and then my library loan ran out and I had to return it. I'll have to get it out again, though - the poems are lyrical, frank, devastating yet hopeful. I mean to read more.
February 16, 2015
What a poignant read, today. Maybe, always. I feel more than fortunate that when I read this work I can hear Ben's voice in my head ��� not just this alone makes me cry at each stanza, for him and for all of us. However, because I can... the work becomes for me.
December 21, 2013
I don't believe a flag / is important / / enough to kiss-- / or even burn. / / Some men would hate me / enough to kill me / if they read those words.
August 30, 2014
Written in 2006, incredibly poignant and still dreaming in 2014.
January 1, 2016
Saenz is by far my favorite poet, on top of being my favorite novelist. He is excellent at capturing true emotion with his words.
October 2, 2019
5/5
so i think Benjamin Alire Sáenz is my favorite poet right now. not that i read much poetry, but i was so completely blown away this book of poetry (& the others i’ve read by him)
they’re so emotive, so full, so captivating, idk. this book was, obviously, about war, but in many ways it still felt remarkably relatable. especially “the second dream: killing and memory and war.” all of these poems just really touched me, as his poetry always does—after reading this one i requested some more of his poetry from the library that i’m really looking forward to reading.
quotes from my favorite poems:
Do Not Mind the Bombs
“I wander through my yard, examining the plants. I lost some to the freeze—but most survived. I touch and kiss the tender leaves and speak to them, half lost, half crazed, half expecting trees and plants and shrubs to kiss me back. Perhaps, today, they’ll kiss me back.”
The First Dream: Learning to Kill
“I knew the blackness of Cain without ever knowing the innocence of Abel. But original sin has always mattered more than original innocence.”
The Second Dream: Killing and Memory and War
“I was against the war
in Vietnam
In this, i was not
original.
What did I know? At sixteen?
And seventeen? And eighteen?
What did I know?
And the men who died?
What did they know?”
~
“There are voices in my head. They come to me
at odd hours and whisper their chairs in my ear.
I remain mostly unmoved.
I know the voices are trying to seduce me,
take away what little order I have left.
The Third Dream: The Names and Their Gods
I try to imagine the names of all who have been killed. I try
To imagine their gods. I try to imagine their gardens. I try to
Imagine their kitchens, the foods they cooked, the slices, the table, The prayers, the smells of a living house. I shut myself into
A room and begin writing paragraphs. One paragraph for each Life.
I spend hours in solitude writing elegies for the dead.
Spelling their names in English, in Hebrew, in Arabic. I begin
Writing definitions for words that will save them all. Then
I despair. And the word for resurrection disappears. I let
out something that resembles a cry. And I know I am lost. I am lost.
The Fourth Dream: Families and Flags and Revenge
“In a photograph at the National Gallery,
in the capital city of my nation, a soldier
is holding another sobbing soldier
in his arms. We are to understand that there
has been a battle. We are to understand
that some have been killed. We are to
understand that the men are
in Korean soil. The soldier who is
sobbing, burying his head deep
into the shoulder of his comrade,
looks like a boy. Must be a boy
The older soldier (who looks as if there
is still a boy living inside him) is trying
to keep the younger man—the man
who is sobbing—from breaking. That is
why he is holding him. But I think once
sad has entered and broken a man, he
will always be broken.”
The Sixth Dream: Animals, Food, Aesthetics
“The first time I saw a dead deer hanging upside down
I hated my father, my uncles, hated the beer on their breath
The smell of dead animal all over them. (I have always
Wondered why men smell like the things they kill just
As I have always wondered why they smell like the women
They love. The things they kill. The women they love.)”
The Tenth Dream: This is How It Will End. Is This How It Will End?
"Every night, now, I dream my father.
I dream his funeral.
I dream his temper. I dream
his kindness, his inability to hold
a grudge. I wake and think
that I do not understand the stranger
who was my father—even in death.
I want to scream in anger
at the father who refused
to speak of his demons—
the secrets he kept closer
to his scarred and bitter heart
than any of his daughters
than any of his sons
The dreams come every night."
so i think Benjamin Alire Sáenz is my favorite poet right now. not that i read much poetry, but i was so completely blown away this book of poetry (& the others i’ve read by him)
they’re so emotive, so full, so captivating, idk. this book was, obviously, about war, but in many ways it still felt remarkably relatable. especially “the second dream: killing and memory and war.” all of these poems just really touched me, as his poetry always does—after reading this one i requested some more of his poetry from the library that i’m really looking forward to reading.
quotes from my favorite poems:
Do Not Mind the Bombs
“I wander through my yard, examining the plants. I lost some to the freeze—but most survived. I touch and kiss the tender leaves and speak to them, half lost, half crazed, half expecting trees and plants and shrubs to kiss me back. Perhaps, today, they’ll kiss me back.”
The First Dream: Learning to Kill
“I knew the blackness of Cain without ever knowing the innocence of Abel. But original sin has always mattered more than original innocence.”
The Second Dream: Killing and Memory and War
“I was against the war
in Vietnam
In this, i was not
original.
What did I know? At sixteen?
And seventeen? And eighteen?
What did I know?
And the men who died?
What did they know?”
~
“There are voices in my head. They come to me
at odd hours and whisper their chairs in my ear.
I remain mostly unmoved.
I know the voices are trying to seduce me,
take away what little order I have left.
The Third Dream: The Names and Their Gods
I try to imagine the names of all who have been killed. I try
To imagine their gods. I try to imagine their gardens. I try to
Imagine their kitchens, the foods they cooked, the slices, the table, The prayers, the smells of a living house. I shut myself into
A room and begin writing paragraphs. One paragraph for each Life.
I spend hours in solitude writing elegies for the dead.
Spelling their names in English, in Hebrew, in Arabic. I begin
Writing definitions for words that will save them all. Then
I despair. And the word for resurrection disappears. I let
out something that resembles a cry. And I know I am lost. I am lost.
The Fourth Dream: Families and Flags and Revenge
“In a photograph at the National Gallery,
in the capital city of my nation, a soldier
is holding another sobbing soldier
in his arms. We are to understand that there
has been a battle. We are to understand
that some have been killed. We are to
understand that the men are
in Korean soil. The soldier who is
sobbing, burying his head deep
into the shoulder of his comrade,
looks like a boy. Must be a boy
The older soldier (who looks as if there
is still a boy living inside him) is trying
to keep the younger man—the man
who is sobbing—from breaking. That is
why he is holding him. But I think once
sad has entered and broken a man, he
will always be broken.”
The Sixth Dream: Animals, Food, Aesthetics
“The first time I saw a dead deer hanging upside down
I hated my father, my uncles, hated the beer on their breath
The smell of dead animal all over them. (I have always
Wondered why men smell like the things they kill just
As I have always wondered why they smell like the women
They love. The things they kill. The women they love.)”
The Tenth Dream: This is How It Will End. Is This How It Will End?
"Every night, now, I dream my father.
I dream his funeral.
I dream his temper. I dream
his kindness, his inability to hold
a grudge. I wake and think
that I do not understand the stranger
who was my father—even in death.
I want to scream in anger
at the father who refused
to speak of his demons—
the secrets he kept closer
to his scarred and bitter heart
than any of his daughters
than any of his sons
The dreams come every night."
September 23, 2025
A collection of poems about wars - beginning, ending, and everything in between.
from Do Not Mind the Bombs: "I remember what she'd said: 'The trees, / we planted them in rows. When the war / was finally one.' I pictured her young, / a handsome husband at her side. At last the war / was done! At last! And before they planted crops, / they planted trees—trees the war had stolen / from the earth."
from The Fourth Dream: Families and Flags and Revenge: "Once, / I dreamed I found these men. I woke / searching for a gun, could feel / the spit in my throat. I knew / that spit to be the only weapon / I could call my own."
from Do Not Mind the Bombs: "I remember what she'd said: 'The trees, / we planted them in rows. When the war / was finally one.' I pictured her young, / a handsome husband at her side. At last the war / was done! At last! And before they planted crops, / they planted trees—trees the war had stolen / from the earth."
from The Fourth Dream: Families and Flags and Revenge: "Once, / I dreamed I found these men. I woke / searching for a gun, could feel / the spit in my throat. I knew / that spit to be the only weapon / I could call my own."
March 5, 2018
4.5 stars
This is probably my second favorite Poetry collection I've ever read (after Milk and Honey)
Benjamin Alire Sáenz is a gorgeous writer and these poems tackled so much from ending war, animal cruelty, and immigration. I think this is an incredibly important book for everyone to read, even those who do not generally read Poetry. It was truly beautiful and profound and I found myself tabbing things constantly.
The only reason I docked half a star is because I feel like for such a short collection, a few of the poems did feel a little repetitive.
This is probably my second favorite Poetry collection I've ever read (after Milk and Honey)
Benjamin Alire Sáenz is a gorgeous writer and these poems tackled so much from ending war, animal cruelty, and immigration. I think this is an incredibly important book for everyone to read, even those who do not generally read Poetry. It was truly beautiful and profound and I found myself tabbing things constantly.
The only reason I docked half a star is because I feel like for such a short collection, a few of the poems did feel a little repetitive.
November 7, 2016
Beautiful and heartbreaking series of dream poems, examining how the construction of masculinity through personal and family experiences, and connecting that construct to war and militarism. The prologue and final poem moved me to tears
August 20, 2017
War and Borders and Family and Life and Death
May 6, 2018
Excellent book. The author's writing makes you live his experience through his words
January 21, 2024
Touching and heartbreaking. 4.8 stars
June 2, 2024
Why did this dude and I share such a similar childhood goddamn, the formative experience of watching your Mexican father skin a deer and slaughter animals is actually unmatched fr
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 18, 2018
This poetry collection reminds me of why I love Saenz work so much. Explore humanity, vanity, pride and war with him. Him and André Aciman have such a way with words, it's beyond me to begin to explain how heartbreaking and acutely felt they can be. Honestly, I feel manipulated, but I am in such awe and gratitude that gently stringed sentenced form such impact and such cunning that delve into you mind. It does not let you forget the pain this world has suffered.
April 18, 2021
2,25 stars.
As much as the themes of this book are important and true, I couldn't seem to enjoy this poetry book.
I find Saenz's writing lyrical and poetic when he's writing a novel. Yet, it lost all his power with this collection. It may be my lack of knowledge on how to read poetry but it felt flat for me. There were maybe two poems that cliqued with me and it was largely because I could connect with it.
However, I will remember his last poem forever.
As much as the themes of this book are important and true, I couldn't seem to enjoy this poetry book.
I find Saenz's writing lyrical and poetic when he's writing a novel. Yet, it lost all his power with this collection. It may be my lack of knowledge on how to read poetry but it felt flat for me. There were maybe two poems that cliqued with me and it was largely because I could connect with it.
However, I will remember his last poem forever.
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