{"product_id":"breakwater-rock-paperback","title":"Breakwater Rock - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eBruce Lawder\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor years I had wanted to write a book of poems that would bring together, geographically, the two halves of my life, first in the United States, where I grew up, and then in Europe, where I now live. I was not sure how I would find the diversity of voices for such a project, but then one day something totally unexpected occurred. As I was being wheeled into the operating room of a Swiss hospital, a few words suddenly went through my head: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eExile, \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eyour former island, \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003elets you go.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI have always been curious what I would think before losing consciousness, and when I came to, this time, after my knee operation, the strange words were still there, still in the form of a stanza, and soon other words began to appear as well. I realized at once what was happening, and asked my wife for a piece of paper and something firm to write against. And so began \"The Turning of the Tide\", a poem I wrote \"upside down\" on my back from my bed in the hospital.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe poem turned out to be an announcement, to myself, of a homecoming, both in space and in time, to the town where I had come of age during what is still called the Vietnam War, though it was not ever officially a war. I had scheduled the operation early enough so that I would be able to walk once more along the edge of the Sound where, as a young man, I had wandered alone and often at night trying to come to terms with the world before me. As a boy I had learned that a word, like a country, has a history of its own, and I had mistakenly derived \"exile\" from the French of \"ex\" and \"île\" and falsely arrived at my \"former island\"; and now, freed of falsehood, here was the word again, in a new yet familiar context. I realized that I had a start on the book that would bring the two continents - the two tectonic plates of my life - back together, in space and time. Other poems began to appear, some even before I had returned to my old hometown, stepping stones of a sort, and what I now had to do, I saw, was to put the separate stones together, to make, in other words, a breakwater rock of my own, something open to everyone, protective and inviting, entrance and exit at once.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 82\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.2 x 9 x 6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e May 15, 2025\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48461226115321,"sku":"9781950475421","price":27.36,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/2782\/3097\/files\/Ynt6gEOpGb9781950475421.webp?v=1780260811","url":"https:\/\/bookscloud.io\/products\/breakwater-rock-paperback","provider":"BooksCloud Book Dropshipping","version":"1.0","type":"link"}