Here, Bullet by Brian Turner
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Book Reviews of Here, Bullet
Book Review: Even if you don't read poetry....
Summary: 5 Stars
Even if you don't read poetry, you should read "Here, Bullet." Although an avid reader, I've never found much poetry to which I could relate. But Brian Turner's book placed me back in Iraq. Full disclosure: Turner contributed to the Random House/NEA anthology, "Operation Homecoming," and so did I, although I have never met him. I recognized his name when I saw "Here, Bullet" on the shelf at an Air Force BX. I opened it to a random page, and it stopped me in my tracks. Turner is the Kipling of this war.
If you want to come as close to the war experience as the written word can take you, read "Here, Bullet" and "Operation Homecoming." (And if you're reading this, you're already on Amazon, so you can order both at the same time!)
Book Review: Brian Turner, Here, Bullet (Alice James Books, 2005)
Summary: 5 Stars
I have read a lot of poetry... the Epic of Gilgamesh, Genesis, Popol Vuh; Celan, Malarme, Holderlin, Paul Klee, S. Plath, John Ashbery, Frederick Turner, Ginsberg, Hopkins, W.S., Donne, Billy Collins... and on and on. I am even the managing editor of a university journal; that said, it is extremely rare that I find contemporary poetry that captures me like Brian Turner's work. [But enough about me]. This book of poems, *Here, Bullet* is a must read for anyone that loves poetry. I suspect too that those at all interested in reading fine literature about our adventures in Iraq will find this revealing in a way that I don't think prose can be. Sincere, real, riveting, insightful, powerful, honest, raw, elegant, gripping, intense and ...lovely.Book Review: A Rich Description of Tragedy-in-Person
Summary: 5 Stars
If it is possible to say that one enjoyed something that deals so directly and vitally to a desperately sad and ruinous experience as that depicted and lived through in Iraq by Mr Brian Turner, then it must be said. I found the poems modern yet deeply expressive of both the great and heroic beauty and supreme tragedy of this war. Mr Turner's work compares easily with the works of many other brilliant poets of other generations and other wars such as Sassoon and Brooke. The poems are varied in style and content and worthy of being read by all mature persons. It does not pretend to judge the situation, but it does richly describe the experience itself.Book Review: A Must Read
Summary: 5 Stars
Just as Michael Casey's book of poetry on the Vietnam war, "Obscenities," was must reading, so is Brian Turner's book of poetry on President Bush's ongoing war in Iraq. There's something intimate and yet at the same time instructive about these poems, as if the narrator takes you by the arm and serves as your personal guide. This is not the stuff of pundits and op-ed writers, thank goodness, but a private, honest, and haunting view of the war. "2000 lbs.," on the effects of a 2000 lb. bomb going off in an Iraqi city, should be read by every American, regardless of political party or stance on the war.Book Review: A Window
Summary: 5 Stars
I was tentative when I ordered the book and thankful after I read it.
This strange and complicated and dreadful event which is raging over there was not made clearer (how could it!) but it was brought closer. For a while I was enabled to see it through the eyes and the mind of a man who has compassion and detachment at the same time. Linking his poems often to Koranic verses and Arab concepts provides an insight into the otherness as well as the comonality of these two worlds.
I bought 4 copies - one for myself the others for my children.
H. Boehme