Here, Bullet by Brian Turner
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Book Reviews of Here, Bullet
Book Review: A book that will join the canon of great war-related poetry
Summary: 5 Stars
After learning about Brian Turner in The New Yorker, I purchased a copy of "Here, Bullet." I have just finished reading it cover to cover, and it is one of the finest collections of poetry--especially pertaining to warfare--I have ever read. For Publisher's Weekly NOT to give this book a starred review is astonishing; indeed, their review above demonstrates, once again, how profoundly ignorant they are concerning modern poetry. (Everyone in the poetry world knows that while PW's fiction and non-fiction reviews are quite solid, their poetry reviews are embarrassingly pedestrian.) As with any collection, there are some works in "Here, Bullet" that are stronger than others, but many of these poems are absolutely breathtaking. Turner has an exceptional gift for bringing images vividly to life, and his poems, overall, transcend the subject of war and capture emotions to which all readers will be able to relate. I highly recommend this book, and I believe that Turner--like Brooke, Owen, Sassoon, and McCrae before him--will become one of the most celebrated literary voices of his generation.Book Review: Poet-soldier . . .
Summary: 5 Stars
The Iraq war goes on, and a growing literature emerges from it as an alternative to the "official view" as portrayed in the media. Turner's slim book of poems is a sensitively drawn collection of individual moments captured by a single soldier's thoughtful sensibility. As another reviewer here has noted, the strength of the poems is not in the articulation of a point of view but in the recording of what there is to be seen, heard, and felt. The title poem is especially striking in its capturing of fear and defiance, while being the target of a cold malevolence.
Many poems are not about fighting soldiers at all but attempts to slip into the culture of Iraqi people, their language, and their values. Turner laments the destruction, but he also keeps seeing it in a larger vision that includes centuries of history. These are poems about people - combatants and noncombatants - caught in the grinding machinery and ambiguities of modern warfare, and they cling to a human spirit that defies death and refuses to yield to despair.
Book Review: A Clear-Eyed Look at Inhumanity
Summary: 5 Stars
Although Brian Turner holds an MFA, his poetry does not suffer from "MFA-itis": no strained metaphors, no fractured sentence structure, no scrambled grammar, no forced ambiguities, and no exaltation of the trivial to no good purpose. Instead, this clear-eyed poet gives us in simple, direct language with common, unvarnished images all the miraculous beauty of daily life mutilated by all the savagery of which human beings are capable. And that's a lot of beauty and a lot of savagery. For example, his vivid poem, "2000 lbs.," captures the explosive dissolution of individual worlds (as opposed to those of community and state) as well as any poet since Homer. This powerful collection of poems should be required reading in all high school history classes (do high schools still teach history?) and for all Congressmen. And maybe even for Presidents and their advisors who have never served in the military. Turner won the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award with this book. He should've picked up a Pulitzer, as well.Book Review: The Tim O'Brien of Iraq War Poetry
Summary: 5 Stars
Brian just spent two days at Virginia Military Institute as a guest of the Institute and the English Department where I teach. His reading last night and his readings in my classes today were among the best poetry readings I've ever heard. The poems in this collection can alternately sear themselves into your memory with their startling, and yet inevitable, images of the heartbreaking carnage of war, or transport you to a ruggedly beautiful landscape of delicate flowers, quiet night skies and the redemptive power of rain. This collection brings the war home in an urgent and slightly different way than we are accustomed--not the snapshots of the photojournalist, the terse dispatches from correspondents or even the handheld video of the networks. It works its magic by engaging our imaginations and our humanity, and for that everyone should be grateful.Book Review: Listening With Heart and Mind
Summary: 5 Stars
Jean Cocteau has written "The poet doesn't invent. He listens." Brian Turner demonstrates the truth of this idea in his 2005 Beatrice Hawley award-winning book "Here, Bullet" as he listens, and records, voices of palm trees, zoo animals, dying soldiers, women hanging out laundry, Arab poets, and his own soul. If you want to move behind the daily news to gain both a historical and a contemporary sense of Iraq and Islam, if you can face the pain and beauty of centuries of stark geography and its influence on people, and if you are searching for truth and hope in a quagmire, buy and read "Here, Bullet". This is not a book to check out of the library for an overnight read - although libraries owe it to their patrons to buy a dozen copies. This is a book to own and ponder.