FutureCycle Press Publishes Veteran's Book of War Poems

MURPHY, N.C. - Oct. 7, 2013 - PRLog -- The most recent volume of poems from FutureCycle Press (http://www.futurecycle.org), Bill Glose’s Half a Man lays bare the impact of war on the individual soldier.

The book’s first half, about war and life in the military, tells of the sometimes harrowing, sometimes maddening, but always emotional experiences of soldiers in today’s Army. The second half is about the baggage a soldier brings home with him and the opposing feelings that threaten to tear him apart: the guilt, the pride, the joy, the anger. Evocative, imagistic, and mesmerizing, replete with telling details and enriched by occasional humor, this collection of war poetry is a brilliant portrayal of what all those touched by war must cope with on both the battlefield and homefront.

Half a Man has already received some high praise.

Richard B. Myers (General, USAF, Ret. 15th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff): “Bill Glose’s poetry brings the last 12 years of war in the Middle East and Central Asia into sharp focus. He elicits all the many emotions that a solider experiences and allows us a rare glimpse into how the people fighting and those caught up in conflict see war. Everyone will learn from this work.”

Jon Pineda (Author of Birthmark, The Translator’s Diary, Apology, and Sleep in Me, a Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers Selection): “In his new collection Half a Man, Bill Glose takes the fragments from his experience as a soldier in the Gulf War—all of the turmoil, confusion, and cacophony—and binds them into thoughtful poems, where in each instance a conscience unfolds as faithfully as a paratrooper’s suspension lines. Even as we must stare down the stark images presented, we are simultaneously held aloft by the poet’s language and humanity.”

Sofia M. Starnes (Author of Fully Into Ashes and other works; Editor of Four Virginia Poets Laureate, a Reader’s Guide; Poetry Editor of the Anglican Theological Review): “The ‘laminated photos of his baby girl,’ rifles that ‘become teepees/ in a field of brown,’ the trigger that ‘knows the cure’: we learn that these things are both nothing and everything in war, as Bill Glose tells us in his impossible-to-avoid portrayal of mankind’s oldest curse. We cannot elude the lesson, nor would we want to, when we meet the intensely honest and lyrical heart of this uniquely gifted soldier-poet.”

Bill Glose is a former paratrooper, a Gulf War veteran, and author of the poetry collection, The Human Touch (San Francisco Bay Press, 2007). In 2011, he was named the Daily Press Poet Laureate. His poems have appeared in numerous publications, such as Narrative Magazine and Poet Lore. His articles have been widely published and honored by the Virginia Press Association, and his short stories have received many awards, including the F. Scott Fitzgerald Short Story Award.

Half a Man is now available on Amazon.com and in FutureCycle Press's Catalog (http://www.futurecycle.org/PressTitles.aspx) in both paperback and Kindle editions.