Set to Music a Wildfire

Book excerpt: Poetry. Middle Eastern Studies. Winner of the 2016 Michael Waters Poetry Prize. In Lebanon during the civil war, a teenage boy and his family witness leveled cities, displaced civilians, the aftermath of massacres. Resources are scarce and uncertainty is everywhere. What does it mean to survive? To leave behind a home torn apart by war? To carry the burden of what you've seen across an ocean? These poems follow a man in search of security as he leaves his country for America, falls in love, and becomes a single father to three daughters. Through the perspective of one man, his family, and even his country, SET TO MUSIC A WILDFIRE explores the violence of living, the guilt of surviving, the loneliness of faith, and the impossible task of belonging.