Son of a convicted felon whose early death left the family impoverished, Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) went on to lead a staggeringly full and successful life. A portrait painter who produced an unparalleled body of work, including the iconic The Artist in His Museum, Peale was also a revolutionary soldier, a radical activist, an impresario of moving pictures, a natural historian, an inventor, and the proprietor of one of the first modern museums. His many other interests included a lifelong preoccupation with writing; in fact, his autobiography is one of the first examples of the...

This full-length poetry collection from art historian David C. Ward combines wry meditations on 21st-century life, work, and family with observations of America--its landscapes, its history, its social and foreign policy. Ward's poems are peopled by those who seem never quite able to inhabit their own lives: from well-known figures such as Andy Warhol and vanished poet Weldon Kees to Ward's own father, a nighthawk playing poker against himself in the early hours. The book's final section turns an unflinching gaze on the post-9/11 United States and its self-deceptions.