Remembrance of Things to Come

By Edward Pols

This slim and beautiful volume of poetry by Edward Pols transcends its setting in Maine, Italy, and the Europe of World War II, to speak of love and loss, life and death, and the inescapable memories of war. It is a book a thoughtful reader will come back to again and again, finding something new to contemplate in each reading. The introduction by Franklin Burroughs situates Pols’s poems in the broader context of modern literature and adds an appreciation of the writer and his achievement.

Edward Pols was Kenan Professor of Philosophy and the Humanities at Bowdoin College. In addition to poetry, he wrote many original works in philosophy, including six books. He completed a seventh, On Rational Agency, only weeks before his death in 2005. During World War II he served extensively in the Army, including two years in the European Theater of Operations (First Lieutenant, Bronze Star). He drew on those wartime experiences for the sequence “War’s End, World’s End” that makes up the second half of this volume.

Hardcover.