Poetry. Leslie Bumstead's remarkable collection issues lyric communiqués from regions unknown to most. Epistolary and lyric, dangerous and tender, CIPHER/CIVILIAN offers juxtapositions of travel, politics, motherhood, revolution, and-perhaps most importantly-love and passion. This collection of poems, prose, and letters is from within some of the poorest regions/populations of the world, from an outsider whose overwhelming insight and compassion create her own lyric language to make known the unknown, to teach us all universal truths, to teach us all of love and beauty, and to say to us what otherwise cannot be said.