These poems explore war and its aftereffects, some inspired by Tieman's experiences serving in the U. S. Army in Vietnam and then resuming civilian life. Others explore war from a historical vantage, such as Tieman's powerful World War I elegy Passchendaele, which has been recorded by the Imperial War Museum in London.
Poet Tim Seibles writes that Tieman's work occupies ''a dimension in which poems allow us to know more than we understand.'' Poet Jack Myers calls the book ''a monument to spiritual growth, as transformative as any bible I've ever read.'' And poet/activist Daniel Berrigan writes, ''Honor and gratitude to John Tieman, our guide through Inferno, from Ypres to Vietnam and beyond.''
Poems from A Concise Biography of Original Sin have appeared in such journals as The Iowa Review, Cimarron Review, Hawaii Review and The American Psychoanalyst.
