Poetry. Thomas Fitzsimmons went into World War II as an underage merchant seaman just after Pearl Harbor and was discharged from the USAAF just after Hiroshima. IRON HARP is a book about the memories, hard and sweet, which linger throughout a lifetime. One man's century -- from a depressed New England mill-town in the 1920's through the spirit-splintering insanities of World War II, to renewal in love, and on to glimpses of grace in Japan, along the Mediterranean, and in the high desert of New Mexico. Many of these poems are poignant evocations of battle and its emotional aftermath and leave the reader shuddering as to the undeniable folly of war. Magnificent. Brutal truth. A stunning combination of raw autobiography and epic poetry. I admire it greatly -- Keith Wilson.