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Summary
Summary
A first-person account of the Iraq War by a solider-poet, winner of the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award.
Adding his voice to the current debate about the US occupation of Iraq, in poems written in the tradition of such poets as Wilfred Owen, Yusef Komunyakaa (Dien Cai Dau), Bruce Weigl (Song of Napalm) and Alice James' own Doug Anderson (The Moon Reflected Fire), Iraqi war veteran Brian Turner writes power-fully affecting poetry of witness, exceptional for its beauty, honesty, and skill. Based on Turner's yearlong tour in Iraq as an infantry team leader, the poems offer gracefully rendered, unflinching description but, remarkably, leave the reader to draw conclusions or moral lessons. Here, Bullet is a must-read for anyone who cares about the war, regardless of political affiliation.
Author Notes
Brian Turner was born in Visalia, California on February 12, 1967. He received an MFA from the University of Oregon before serving for seven years in the U.S. Army. He was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999-2000, then in November 2003, he was an infantry team leader for a year in Iraq. His first book, Here, Bullet, chronicles his time in Iraq. His other books include Phantom Noise and My Life as a Foreign Country.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The verse in this book is not good, but it is, in a cultural moment that includes Cindy Sheehan, timely. Turner served seven years in the U.S. Army, including deployment to Bosnia-Herzegovina with the 10th Mountain Division, and a year spent as an infantry team leader with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the 2nd Infantry Division in Iraq. He, begins, after a prefatory poem ("This is a language made of blood./ It is made of sand, and time. To be spoken, it must be earned"), with poems whose titles precisely describe their contents: the nightmarish dispersal of "The Baghdad Zoo," the infamous "Hwy 1" ("the Highway of Death"), "The Al-Harishma Weapons Market," "Body Bags," "Najaf, 1820," "Dreams from the Malaria Pills," "Katyusha Rockets," "Observation Post #798," "2000 lbs." (in one bomb)-along with medevacs, translators, civilians and much more. Turner earned an M.F.A. from the University of Oregon before joining the army. His work is straightforward and direct. It highlights the violence and death of the war in a manner little seen elsewhere. (Nov. 1) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Guardian Review
March 20 will mark the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq. This volume from Brian Turner, who served there for a year as an infantry team leader, has won praise and awards in the US since its publication in 2005. Expectations are therefore high, but such a collection invites reservations. The conflict remains ongoing; are artistic responses to it premature? Is it possible for a man so intimately involved in a war to avoid glorifying or pitying those also caught up in it? Well, the jury's still out on the first question, but when it comes to the second, the answer is an unequivocal yes. Turner proves himself an ideal chronicler, eloquent and detached. He avoids the twin pitfalls of embellishment and identification, allowing the particulars of warfare - the "bled-out slumpings / and all the fucks and goddamns / . . . of the wounded" - to speak for themselves, offsetting and deepening them with descriptions of the "vines of wild grapes", "shimmering" Eucalyptus trees and minarets against which they're played out. Above all, he affords dignity to the participants through acknowledgment of their individuality, giving names, recognising relationships, delineating histories. The power of this collection extends far beyond its harrowing subject-matter. Sarah Crown Caption: article-pobrief26.1 [Brian Turner] proves himself an ideal chronicler, eloquent and detached. - Sarah Crown.
Library Journal Review
The challenge Iraq war veteran Turner faced in writing this first collection was how to write beautiful poetry on the grim realities of war, about which there is nothing poetic. He aims to achieve his goal through simple description; the horror and the bloodiness of the war compel him to rely extensively on documenting its events, and his poems surrender to the power of narrative at the expense of the density and allusive imagery of poetry. Throughout, Turner attempts to capture the extreme experience of war by depicting the feelings it generates: the sense of loss, hatred, humiliation, love, uncertainty, and dreamy longing for a normal life among others. Symbols from Iraqi culture, such as Quranic verses, historical figures, and Arabic words, are cleverly employed throughout to enhance the effectiveness of the verse. The poems are strongest when Turner hints at and suggests functions that are vital to poetic language: "Cranes roost atop power lines in enormous/ bowl-shaped nests of sticks and twigs/and when a sergeant shoots one from the highway/ it pauses, as if amazed that death has found it/ here, at 7 a.m. on such a beautiful morning." Recommended for large public libraries.-Sadiq Alkoriji, Tomball Coll. & Community Lib., Harris Cty., TX (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Here, Bullet If a body is what you want, then here is bone and gristle and flesh. Here is the clavicle-snapped wish, the aorta's opened valves, that leap thought makes at the synaptic gap. Here is the adrenaline rush you crave, that inexorable flight, that insane puncture into heat and blood. And I dare you to finish what you've started. Because here, Bullet, here is where I complete the word you bring hissing through the air, here is where I moan the barrel's cold esophagus, triggering my tongue's explosives for the rifling I have inside of me, each twist of the round spun deeper, because here, Bullet, here is where the world ends, every time. Excerpted from Here, Bullet by Brian Turner All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.Table of Contents
A Soldier's Arabic | p. 1 |
I The Baghdad Zoo | p. 5 |
Hwy 1 | p. 6 |
In the Leupold Scope | p. 7 |
The Al Harishma Weapons Market | p. 8 |
What Every Soldier Should Know | p. 9 |
The Hurt Locker | p. 11 |
Observation Post #71 | p. 12 |
Here, Bullet | p. 13 |
Body Bags | p. 14 |
AB Negative (The Surgeon's Poem) | p. 15 |
Two Stories Down | p. 17 |
Ashbah | p. 18 |
Into the Elephant Grass | p. 19 |
Eulogy | p. 20 |
II Kirkuk Oilfield, 1927 | p. 23 |
Trowel | p. 24 |
Where the Telemetries End | p. 25 |
Autopsy | p. 26 |
Repatriation Day | p. 27 |
Najaf, 1820 | p. 28 |
For Vultures: A Dystopia | p. 29 |
16 Iraqi Policemen | p. 30 |
Dreams from the Malaria Pills (Barefoot) | p. 31 |
Katyusha Rockets | p. 32 |
R&R | p. 33 |
Dreams from the Malaria Pills (Bosch) | p. 34 |
How Bright It Is | p. 35 |
III Alhazen of Basra | p. 39 |
Easel | p. 40 |
Observation Post #798 | p. 41 |
2000 lbs. | p. 42 |
Dreams from the Malaria Pills (Turner) | p. 46 |
Curfew | p. 47 |
IV Mihrab | p. 51 |
Milh | p. 52 |
Gilgamesh, in Fossil Relief | p. 53 |
Tigris River Blues | p. 54 |
Ferris Wheel | p. 55 |
Sadiq | p. 56 |
Jameel | p. 57 |
Last Night's Dream | p. 58 |
Cole's Guitar | p. 59 |
9-Line Medevac | p. 61 |
Night in Blue | p. 64 |
Caravan | p. 65 |
To Sand | p. 66 |
Notes | p. 69 |