French for Soldiers

Nina Nyhart's concern for the saving power of language informs many of the poems in French For Soldiers. The title poem weaves together World War I vocabulary lessons and an eloquent Daudet story to convey the reality of war. Whether in dream sequences, or in persona voices, or in poems grounded in Maine coast summers, Nina Nyhart's metaphors are "life preservers" that rescue both the imagined and the real.