The Hundred Fathom Curve chronicles the search for an American identity from the Vietnam war to 9/11. The poems, drawn from five previous collections and published over 40 years, include BarrÆs eye-witness accounts as a Navy veteran of Vietnam, and as a New Yorker who was present at 9/11. They explore the boundary of what is human with all that is not, and find things never to be as they seem. They follow the journey from nature into art, and the efforts of the artist to discover what it means to be human.