Many of the poems in English are set in New York City around the events of September 11, 2001. In the faux prologue poem 'About the Author', the narrator finds himself 'on Sixth, watching ruin, with / a handful of rain and a prophecy': a citizen of no country except the republic that gives the book its title, the Republic of English. Here, English is more than a language. It is a river of the world.