Duy Doan's striking debut reveals the wide resonance of the collection's unassuming title, in poems that explore – now with abundant humor, now with a deeply felt reserve – the ambiguities and tensions that mark our effort to know our histories, our...

A young soldier dons Napoleon's hat. An out-of-work man wanders Berlin, dreaming he is Peter the Great. The famous exile Dante finally returns to his native city to "hang his crown of laurels up". Familial and historical apparitions haunt this dazzli...