Adrian Oktenberg breaks the media-induced numbness that surrounded the war in the Balkans, and makes it impossible to resist or deny this genocide. Echoing the voices of Charlotte Delbo, Walt Whitman, Cavafy, Tory Dent, Carolyn Forche, and many others, this collection presents the duality of the brutalities and experiences of war beside life in an American landscape marked with the ripening tomatoes of summer and news of devastation in foreign cities with unpronouncable names.