Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Summary and Reviews of Then the War by Carl Phillips

Then the War by Carl Phillips

Then the War

And Selected Poems, 2007-2020

by Carl Phillips

  • Critics' Consensus (8):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • Published:
  • Feb 2022, 224 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. A new collection of poems from one of America's most essential, celebrated, and enduring poets, Carl Phillips's Then the War.

I'm a song, changing. I'm a light
rain falling through a vast

darkness toward a different
darkness.


Carl Phillips has aptly described his work as an "ongoing quest"; Then the War is the next step in that meaningful process of self-discovery for both the poet and his reader. The new poems, written in a time of rising racial conflict in the United States, with its attendant violence and uncertainty, find Phillips entering deeper into the landscape he has made his own: a forest of intimacy, queerness, and moral inquiry, where the farther we go, the more difficult it is to remember why or where we started.

Then the War includes a generous selection of Phillips's work from the previous thirteen years, as well as his recent lyric prose memoir, Among the Trees, and his chapbook, Star Map with Action Figures.

Ultimately, Phillips refuses pessimism, arguing for tenderness and human connection as profound forces for revolution and conjuring a spell against indifference and the easy escapes of nostalgia. Then the War is luminous testimony to the power of self-reckoning and to Carl Phillips as an ever-changing, necessary voice in contemporary poetry.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Book Awards

  • award image Pulitzer Prize, 2023

Reviews

Media Reviews

"This selected offers admirers of Phillips's work a chance to revisit his masterful poems, and new readers an opportunity to see the evolution of a vital presence in American poetry ... These lyrically rich, insightful poems are full of palpable aching―'like the rhyme between lost/ and most'―and a human urge to understand. This remarkable compendium is a testament to the spirit of Phillips's work." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"With the incomparably gorgeous, deftly poetic sentences that make up his work, Carl Phillips has been exploring intimacy, sexuality, and interiority for more than a decade." ―Corinne Segal, Literary Hub

"A master class in [Phillips's] deceptively gentle voice and striking depictions of raw humanity ... Every selection provides a portal to this accomplished author's work. An important milestone in the still flourishing career of a most brilliant poet." ―Booklist

"Glowing confirmation that, as he enters his 60s, Phillips is writing better than ever. The poems that open Then the War are extraordinary ecological lyric verse, subtle and transformative." ―Fiona Sampson, The Guardian

"The poet Carl Phillips combines beauty and insight in syntactically surprising lines that always reward careful study ... an exquisite collection." ―Ron Charles, The Washington Post

"Carl Phillips is a poet of enchantment and persuasion ... I couldn't mistake these poems for any other poet's work. In a moment obsessed with snappy performances, Phillips's poems are contemplative, rich, and troubled. They are rarely axiomatic or quotable. Often, their power lies in their unfolding." ―Richie Hofmann, Los Angeles Review of Books

This information about Then the War was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Anthony Conty

I am Really Trying to Like Poetry
“Then the War” by Carl Phillips will remind you of high school English class, not in a good way. I wanted someone to explain it and get it over with. Some of the images are pleasant and deep, but I did not understand enough to recommend them, and what I did understand took so many re-reads that it seemed like a chore.

A 22-page entry called “Among the Trees” works so well that it redeems the first part, as Phillips explores how we use the forest to conceal and escape—nature as a metaphor motif has permeated poetry for generations, and the audiobook does that justice.

There is a great deal of skill here, as Phillips makes points and casually makes sexual references that come out of nowhere. Understanding his work will require a lot of re-reads, and how motivated you are to do that will most likely determine your enjoyment.

The book is my least favorite of the last five Pulitzer poetry winners, but I do not think I am the target audience. Many poets tend to be gay men and have a unique perspective on things that authors tend to dance around, so I am glad that their demographic exists.

Phillips teaches poetry at Washington University in St. Louis, and I would like to take his class to figure out how to communicate this way. Some of the images are beautiful. It doesn’t add up to something I can recommend or expect to turn non-believers on to poetry.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Carl Phillips

Carl Phillips is the author of 9 previous books of poems, including Quiver of Arrows: Selected Poems, 1986-2006; Riding Westward; and The Rest of Love, a National Book Award Finalist. His most recent collection, Speak Low, is a 2009 National Book Award Finalist. He teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more poetry & novels in verse...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...
  • Book Jacket: The Wide Wide Sea
    The Wide Wide Sea
    by Hampton Sides
    By 1775, 48-year-old Captain James Cook had completed two highly successful voyages of discovery and...
  • Book Jacket: My Friends
    My Friends
    by Hisham Matar
    The title of Hisham Matar's My Friends takes on affectionate but mournful tones as its story unfolds...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don't.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.