Winner of the 2003 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize
These poems are full of surprises: the gods talk; ancient authors talk; the dictionary talks; very memorably, the bride over the Drina River, roughly between Bosnia and Serbia, speaks two haunting poems. The dead talk, wolves talk, a teacher talks, with a chorus. Sometimes I like to imagine this long poem being staged. What the music would be! Who would do the sets! What languages
Lee Petersen?s Rooms and Fields: Dramatic Monologues from the War in Bosnia doesn’t have a single wasted breath; its sense of necessity never lets up; I always feel that the people and animals and landscapes being written about are being honoured. The work is compassionate and single-mindedly alive to its purpose. What a rare thing it is to find the meeting of historical, political, and poetic wisdom.
Jean Valentine, Judge Rooms and Fields is history not simply documented and explored but also deeply felt. A poetic inquiry, its concerns are uniquely and fundamentally intimate. Compassion drives this collection of spare and gracious poems.