"Taking Mesopotamia" was originally inspired by Jenny Lewis's search for her lost father--the young South Wales Borderer who led his troops across the desert by starlight in the ill-fated Mesopotamian campaign of World War I. Through reconstructed diary extracts, witness statements, and a mixture of formal poems and free verse, the book extends into a wider exploration of the recent Iraq war seen from a woman's point of view--the horror of sons and daughters being sent into battle, the struggles of widows and orphans. Woven through the personal and geopolitical content is a more ancient...