Jon D. Lee

IN/DESIDERATO is a book-length poetic meditation on what remains of us, and what has been left behind.

As refracted through the battlefields of WWII and the War on Terror, and equally through the deepest ocean depths and the planet’s oldest organisms, we have left indelible marks on all that we have claimed a troubled stewardship over. This positioning demands difficult questions about our relationship to time, nature, and each other—especially as they are lensed through the eyes of a new father. Combining personal narrative, environmental ethic, and lyric philosophy, this long poem raises important criticisms about what each of us are owed.