Like an embedded journalist, Patrick Woodcock writes his poetry from the front lines of experience.

From cities reeling from the trauma of siege warfare to the stifling heat and politics of the Arabian Peninsula to the darkest corners of the South American rain forest, Woodcock's poems bear witness to a world that is equally immediate and remote... and far more complex than we often imagine.

In his new book Always Die Before You Mother, Woodcock takes us around the globe — recording whatever he can. Like a photographer using the changeable lenses of image and idiom, he transforms all that he sees into a searing commentary on human failures both public and private, those of our societies, our politics and our religions, as well as his own failures as a son.