Civilians: Poems - Paperback

by Jehanne Dubrow (Author)

The final volume in Jehanne Dubrow's groundbreaking trilogy about the experience of being a modern military spouse, Civilians examines a significant moment of transformation in a military marriage: the shift from active-duty service to civilian life. After twenty years in the U.S. Navy, Dubrow's husband came to the end of his tenure as an officer. Civilians addresses what it means when someone who has been trained for war returns from the confining, restrictive space of a naval vessel. Set amid America's seemingly endless conflicts, Dubrow's poems confront pressing questions about the process of transitioning to a new reality as a noncombatant: What happens to the sailor removed from a world of uniforms and uniformity? How is his language changed? His geography? And what happens to a wife once physical and emotional distances are erased and she is reunited with her husband, a man made strange and foreign by his contact with war?

Author Biography

Jehanne Dubrow is the author of nine poetry collections and three books of nonfiction, including, most recently, Exhibitions: Essays on Art & Atrocity. She is professor of creative writing at the University of North Texas.