Hand to Hand

"What was I doing when . . . ?" For Nadine McInnis, this question is a catalyst for exploring the connections between seemingly unrelated events. McInnis builds bridges between the unknowable and the intimate, making connections between "famous" media moments -- such as Princess Diana giving birth, Ben Johnson winning Olympic gold -- and the events in ordinary lives. She allows each to comment on the other, transmitting knowledge "hand to hand" through a chain of human connection. In the harrowing poems at the core of this book, McInnis explores the violence of our connection to one another, and the ultimate unknowable -- and intimate -- events: "hand to hand" combat, war and death. She assumes unconventional personae, such as those of a female soldier during the Gulf War and an officer who commits an atrocity. Finally, in her closing poems, McInnis brings us home again, with sensuous and healing poems about love and family.