In addressing public and private conflicts and transnational borders, David Lloyd’s new collection Warriors draws from myth, history, popular culture, family, the animal world, the environment while using an array of forms: the sestina, the parable, the lyric, the narrative, the poem sequence.

Part One: The Great KhanI. The Second Greatest JoyII. When ...III. What’s Next?IV. In the Conquered Land of the DeadV. Lifetimes LaterPart Two: Lords of the JungleThe Everyday ApocalypseWhat If?Sitting BullHomage to Daniel BooneExpeditionWhat’s Left?Bomber Over Carreg CennenAfter the CrucifixionMiracleIn the Courtyard of the High PriestPerfectionSkinLord of the JungleSnowmanState of the UnionPerspectivesVarious RestrictionsThe Inner NothingA Definition of InsanityGiving It All AwayPart Three: Father and SonI. HomecomingII. First BruiseIII. The PastIV. Love (I)V. ArmamentVI. The TouchVII. Love (II)VIII. TellingIX. The FightX. Once Upon a TimeXI. SomersaultsXII. ChoicesXIII. DeityXIV. DeathXV. MemoryPart Four: Bedtime StoriesSchizoThe First House I KnewThe Second House I KnewBedtime StoriesIn the WildernessA Problem with TimePart Five: Lessons in GeographyI. ChildhoodII. AdolescenceIII. AdulthoodIV. Old Age

Citation for David Lloyd’s co-winning entry to the Poetry Society of America’s year 2000 Robert H. Winner Memorial Award David Lloyd’s “Sestinas for the Everyday Apocalypse” takes one of the most rigid forms – one that in most hands is clumsy and boring – turning it flexible, muscular and dramatically satisfying. Despite Lloyd’s range of variations, we have the sense of an established poetic “line” and of a working correspondence between syntax and music. More important, the best of these ten poems – above all, the final sestina – address the fearful dilemmas, our common losses and triumphs, with an unforced wisdom at once convincing and beautiful.

David Lloyd in these poems asks us to measure our appetites, our time, and ourselves against the history and hubris of the great potentates, gods, warriors, and fathers. He sounds the limits of knowing and loving, and maps both the “North American forest of aboriginal danger” and the interior. His aim is at the heart. He is unafraid to ask the large questions of love and loyalty, mutability and awe. In these bold and essential poems he reveals the “secret markings” of creatures and returns – skillfully, subtly – to the stories of our forming.

David Lloyd in these poems asks us to measure our appetites, our time, and ourselves against the history and hubris of the great potentates, gods, warriors, and fathers. He sounds the limits of knowing and loving, and maps both the "North American forest of aboriginal danger" and the interior. His aim is at the heart. He is unafraid to ask the large questions of love and loyalty, mutability and awe. In these bold and essential poems he reveals the "secret markings" of creatures and returns - skillfully, subtly - to the stories of our forming. -- Bruce Smith Politically urgent, David Lloyd's poems consider how we deal with power, information, the absurdity of fame. This book is more than enjoyable, it is necessary. -- Robert Minhinnick

Perfection One day the man who empties the trash from my office wastepaper basket, who limps and doesn’t speak clearly or well or even often, tells me he sleeps with fourteen cats, so each night he’s touched in different places by different cats stretching, kneading, licking tails, yawning, settling themselves with different access at different times to his warmth, dreaming of him or maybe not – who can know? – while around the bed, he tells me, thirteen dogs take turns patrolling perimeters, curling up on pillows he’s tossed on the floor or pacing by windows and doors, checking locks, latches, keyholes, sniffing the apartment air, punctuating the night with growls or barks as necessary, while outside, he says, the squirrels never stop perfecting their acrobatics for the morning breakfast show and the birds sharing those branches and telephone wires in the dark gather in twos and threes to wake him, he says, with a chorus they never get right, though they try again each morning, as faithful as his dogs, and one day – he’s very sure of this – they will sing perfectly in unison.