"The ghazal form is well known in Islamic culture but is only now making its way into the literary culture of the West. Each stanza of three lines amounts to a finished poem. My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy is Robert Bly's second book of ghazals. The poems have become more intricate and personal than they were in The Night Abraham Called to the Stars, and the leaps even more bold. This book includes the already famous poem against the Iraq War "Call and Answer"."--BOOK JACKET