Here, Bullet

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Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

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) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

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 Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781882295555
Publisher: Alice James Books
Publication date: 11/1/2005
Pages: 80
Sales rank: 295,034
Product dimensions: 5.50 (w) x 8.50 (h) x 0.30 (d)

Meet the Author

Brian Turner earned an MFA from the University of Oregon and lived abroad in South Korea for a year before serving for seven years in the US Army. He was an infantry team leader for a year in Iraq beginning in November 2003 with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. Prior to that, he was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999 with the 10th Mountain Division. His poetry has been published in Poetry Daily, The Georgia Review and other journals, and in the Voices in Wartime Anthology.

Read an Excerpt

Here, Bullet

By Brian Turner

Alice James Books

Copyright © 2005 Brian Turner
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9781882295555

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.

Continues...

Excerpted from Here, Bullet by Brian Turner Copyright © 2005 by Brian Turner. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

	A Soldier's Arabic	1
I
	The Baghdad Zoo	5
	Hwy 1	6
	In the Leupold Scope	7
	The Al Harishma Weapons Market	8
	What Every Soldier Should Know	9
	The Hurt Locker	11
	Observation Post #71	12
	Here, Bullet	13
	Body Bags	14
	AB Negative (The Surgeon's Poem)	15
	Two Stories Down	17
	Ashbah	18
	Into the Elephant Grass	19
	Eulogy	20
II
	Kirkuk Oilfield, 1927	23
	Trowel	24
	Where the Telemetries End	25
	Autopsy	26
	Repatriation Day	27
	Najaf, 1820	28
	For Vultures: A Dystopia	29
	16 Iraqi Policemen	30
	Dreams from the Malaria Pills (Barefoot)	31
	Katyusha Rockets	32
	R&R	33
	Dreams from the Malaria Pills (Bosch)	34
	How Bright It Is	35
III
	Alhazen of Basra	39
	Easel	40
	Observation Post #798	41
	2000 lbs.	42
	Dreams from the Malaria Pills (Turner)	46
	Curfew	47
IV
	Mihrab	51
	Milh	52
	Gilgamesh, in Fossil Relief	53
	Tigris River Blues	54
	Ferris Wheel	55
	Sadiq	56
	Jameel	57
	Last Night's Dream	58
	Cole's Guitar	59
	9-Line Medevac	61
	Night in Blue	64
	Caravan	65
	To Sand	66
	Notes	69

Customer Reviews

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Anonymous

Posted February 1, 2012

Great poetry

Brian Turner has a great voice for his experiences. His word choices and imagery are powerful.

The poetry is beautiful while tragic and emotionally pulling.

I would recommend this to anyone who is willing to read this with an open mind, as well as stand the graphic nature of war.
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Posted October 31, 2008

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Here, Bullet

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Here, Bullet

Alice James Books

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Great poetry