In 1970, during the war in Viet Nam, Marchant became one of the first Marine officers ever to be honorably discharged as a conscientious objector. In the poems contained in Full Moon Boat, Marchant explores the concept of violence: What are its origins and consequences? What actions of the heart and mind resist it? Marchant takes us on a voyage from childhood to adult trauma, and eventually to a peace arrived at by unflinching meditation. A hard-won peace, it is our undiscovered country.