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, while other lines ride all hours in yellow light, gliding to stops at the zebra-painted beam halfway down each platform, conductor always pointing up, as if to say, yes, you are here.