<i>Because What Else Could I Do</i> is a sequence of fifty-five untitled short poems, almost all of them addressed to the poet’s husband during the six months following his sudden and shocking death. Perhaps best known for her historical explorations of sociopolitical issues, Martha Collins did not originally intend to publish these poems. But while they are intensely personal, they make use of all of her poetic attention and skills. Spare, fragmented, musical even in their most heartbreaking moments, the poems allow the reader to share both an intimate expression the poet’s grief and a moving record of her attempt to comprehend the events surrounding her loss.
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<b>Martha Collins </b>is the author of ten previous collections of poetry, most recently <i>Because What Else Could I Do</i>, which won the Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams Award. Previous volumes include <i>Blue Front</i>, <i>White Papers</i>, <i>Admit One: An American Scrapbook</i>, and the paired volumes <i>Day unto Day</i> and <i>Night unto Night.</i> She has also cotranslated four volumes of Vietnamese poetry and coedited several anthologies.