"Philip Hammial's Detroit & Selected Poems is riddled with daring and chance. The voice, though well traveled-`Rotterdam, Mombasa, Odessa' or `Gdansk, Haiphong, Caracas'-seems, through playful juxtapositions of language and knowing humor, always located in Detroit. The characters of the poems, such as the `opener of a bear's eye' or monks who make `the sound that carries your mother home,' dare to stare into `the face of Death.' Hammial's poetry transports the reader through an interior world where object and memory become metaphor, and, in the end, he leaves us like his speaker `in the maze blowing.'" - Yusef Komunyakaa

Author Biography

PHILIP HAMMIAL is an Australian American poet born in Detroit. He's published 30 books of poetry. He is a sculptor of distinction. Hammial was a member of Woodford Bush Fire Brigade 1995-2003 and fought fires that raged through the Blue Mountains. He is the winner of various important literary prizes.