William La Riche's incredibly ambitious, book-length poem takes on the modern problem of war. The poem's great achievement is that it situates our own age, not as a golden age, but as one notable for its harshness and brutality, especially towards non-combatants. Just as Homer's Iliad and Virgil's Aeneid allow us to experience the complexity and contradictions of the ancient world, To the House of Collateral Damage searches for the language that might be used to understand brutality—or even to change it. La Riche proposes, boldly, to observe and judge our own world through the contradictions of our relationship to war.
A former Fulbright Scholar, WILLIAM LA RICHE is a writer and architect who has taught at Princeton and New York University. He is the founder of The House of Collateral Damage Project, which was won the endorsement of prominent human rights advocates and philanthropists. The work of the Project includes the study, formulation, and implementation of policies—from the local to the global scale—that prevent the forced displacement and mass murder of civilians. La Riche lives in New York City.