Customer Reviews

Human Shrapnel

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I must admit that when I picked this book up six years ago, I was still a little wet behind the ears as a reader. I had absorbed most of what was available by Bukowski, Celine, Rimbaud, Harry Crews spotted with bits of Jean Genet, Henry Miller, Yukio Mishima, Sartre and Proust... AND I was STILL totally unprepared for Bill Shields. "Human Shrapnel" is 63 pages thick so I had naturally assumed that I would start and finish it within the same hour. I did manage to start and finish it within the same month and even then I had to push myself. I could always manage a couple of pages before I would have to put it down, try to think about something else and forget about it, (though Shield's writing is ANYTHING BUT forgetable) and give it another go the next day. Each poem in this book is reportage from a war that is still being fought, inch by inch in the privacy of one man's home where one is not even safe from one's own thoughts and remembering is the last thing you would want to do. What is most harrowing about Shield's writing is his delivery. He is efficient and even, so totally accustomed to horror that his tone hardly flinches. He has lived with these demons for THAT long. There comes a point with Bill Shields where it is no longer a matter of whether or not you "like" his writing as it is a matter of RESPECT. You have to respect Bill Shields for surviving what he knows. You have to respect Bill Shields for living through all it took to summon these things up so that they may be put to paper. And you have to respect the ability of these lines to completely kick you to the floor and break your heart several times over. This book completely ressurected for me the power of words. Unfortunately, it rendered other writers and their work completely ineffective.

Bill writes words that will live with you for days. In a world where so much poetry and prose is weak Shields brings it home and puts it right in your face. You bleed, cry, taste, and smell the post "Nam" world of Bill Sheilds. Strap on a flack jacket and give it a try.

One of the most intense books ive ever read.....you should check out Tony Bledsoe...hes a great writer too......and you can get cheaper Sheilds books from him too...

I poured my life out in this book & now it'sout of print.But it does exist