The line between poems and jokes runs thin in Randy Brown’s new collection, So Frag and So Bold—but in the best possible way. Brown, in a series of mostly very-short poems, quips, and aphorisms, brings the gallows humor of military life to the stage in a unique, funny, and moving way all at once. These poems feel both very real and also imaginative, almost like a Greek chorus calling out in intervals from stage left, telling you the real thing you need to know.
President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
