I discovered Brian Turner's collection Here, Bullet a few years back when I traveled to Raleigh, NC to read with U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. Turner wrote the poems while serving in the military in Iraq. They are stunning poems. Turner is an important voice in contemporary American poetry. Edward Byrne features his work in the new Valparaiso Poetry Review, along with an excellent interview. Please visit the site to read Turner's poems and his interview responses.
Here is a brief segment from that exchange.
"When I look back at myself as a soldier writing poetry in Iraq, I see a writer who is beginning to learn how to write as a witness. (As a witness to my own life, as well as those around me.) In previous manuscripts I’d written (on a variety of subjects), I mostly imposed my style, my music, on to the subject at hand. In Iraq, though I wasn’t consciously aware of it at the time, I was learning how to listen more to the poem rising from within the moment. The results were poems unlike what I’d written before. In contrast to the more melodic intent of my earlier poetry, the poems in Here, Bullet are often bare, stripped down, and direct."
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