Book cover of The Infirmary

Book description

Winner of the 2008 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize

“[Edward Micus's The Infirmary is] a rarity: a mature debut, a first book of poems with time-tested virtues. . . . Unlike many of the Vietnam poems written at the time of the war or shortly thereafter―poems of anger or…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Infirmary as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Micus’s poetry awed me with its beauty and precision of language. Because he published this book long after Vietnam, many of the poems confront that long “after” which comes with war: purpose, the search for community, PTSD and suicide, and moral injury.

I find myself going back to many of these poems to experience his remarkable voice.

If you love The Infirmary...

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