A Palace of Ruins: Poems

From the mountains of Afghanistan, to the devastated cities of Ukraine, to the ransacked Capitol of the United States, Steve Nolan takes you on an intimate journey, a portrait of destruction and the human impulse to rise from the rubble to construct a new palace on the ruins of the last. Whether referencing civilization, government, or a single soul, his poetry pays tribute to those who manage to find treasure amongst the shards of a shattered individual life or the shattered dreams of history.

In his theme poem, "The Longest Dream in the World," he shares this:

The longest dream hasn't died.

Dreams are not subject to death

like ideologies, one stacked

upon the archeology of the other-

a palace of ruins... The dream,

like the wind, is the breath

of the world.