So the world will go on, and the International Brigade
will become less than a memory of something forgotten,
with some looking back at history like a scrapbook they got
at a garage sale for a bargain and wonder how it was made,
for what, and why so much effort went into it—this page
especially they’ll wonder at without wonder: the rifle fallen
from his grip, the soldier falling back—wonder if it’s staged.
—Death of a Loyalist Soldier (1936) by Robert Capra
Stephen Gibson’s most recent poetry collection, Self-Portrait in a Door-Length Mirror, won the 2017 Miller Williams Prize from the University of Arkansas Press. Earlier collections include The Garden of Earthly Delights Book of Ghazals (Texas Review Press), Rorschach Art Too (2014 Donald Justice Prize, Story Line Press), Paradise (Miller Williams finalist, University of Arkansas Press), Frescoes (Idaho Book Prize, Lost Horse Press), Masaccio’s Expulsion (MARGIE/Intuit House Book Prize), and Rorschach Art (Red Hen Press).