Fugitive/Refuge

“This is a breathtaking collection, unrivaled in scope or execution, fit to dwell among the great collections of our time… [W]hat sets Shrapnel Maps apart from many of its contemporaries is its insistence on reaching for the light, in reaching for unity, in reaching for new definitions of peace and new definitions of a sustainable joy.” —Cleveland Review of Books

“Metres has emerged as one of the leading Catholic poet-activists. A riveting, ambitious book.” —The Millions

“Drawing language and insight from across [various religious, cultural, and political] archives, the poems in this collection imagine forms of radical listening that seek to uncover that utterance of relational possibility which the official archive buries and renders silent. Brave and challenging, Shrapnel Maps asks hard questions but creates a courageous space in which to have these conversations.” —The Adroit Journal

“The substance behind Shrapnel Maps is substantial and groundbreaking, and poet Philip Metres has created a compelling work within its covers that will bring a new view to everyone who delves into its space.” —New York Journal of Books

“Shrapnel Maps is so beautiful. Half dream, half nightmare, all real. Filled with the remnants of what people hope for and what they are willing to do, and everything that remains afterwards. It’s a confrontation to identity and it dares to conjugate love as a defiance to the capacity of violence. Extraordinary. . . . elegant and devastating and compelling and complex.” —Pádraig Ó Tuama

“Philip Metres explores a number of different orientations of the poet—poet as alternative historian, detective, philosopher, documentarian, shaman… Metres accomplishes that most difficult task: a book about poetry that actually captures its rich multiplicity, opening outward into a more rigorously, compassionately imagined poetic future." —Kaveh Akbar

“Philip Metres has created a miracle—a tender book so transporting it carries us deeply into the soul of Palestine as well as the love of a family—mysteries and blessings of language and haunted details—each tiny turn as huge as history and the next precious page of days.” —Naomi Shihab Nye