Brian Turner, #2

So Brian Turner came to visit our humble campus today and it was good day. First, and most important for me, a few of my journalism students were able to sit down with Turner before his reading and ask questions about his experiences in Iraq, and of course, about his volume of poems Here, Bullet. The meeting took place in my office, and I tried to record all of it on my MAC for a podcast later on (hopefully via Itunes university), but the results were mixed at best. Disparate audio levels, hissing on the recording, etc. It’s rough but workable. But this is another story.

I’ve never had the chance to sit down with a writer like Turner, and I appreciated his generous responses to all questions and his efforts to connect with my students beyond his own work. So thanks.

A bit later, Turner read the poems listed here in our theatre, with a sense of purpose that sought to heighten the drama of those events. He even managed to call out my journalism students for taking notes, saying jokingly that the pressure was on “to be eloquent.” If you find your way to this page (and we know you get around on the net), Brian, please know they had an assignment due the next class after your visit. The poems…

1. Here, Bullet

Without a word of introduction, he jumped in to this poem, later saying it was mostly bravado masking fear.

2. What Every Soldier Should Know

This youtube vid has high production value.

3. Baghdad Zoo
4. Katyusha Rockets

Scroll down a little for the poem…The painting is beautiful, too.

5. 2000 lbs.

A favorite of mine in this volume, and a few of my students. They were happy he chose to read this, especially after he talked about it in our interview. One of the students said, “it breaks my heart every time I read it.” Can’t find a reading on the net, though.

6. Eulogy

Scroll down for poem…

7. Sadiq

A link to the poem…except that’s not Turner reading.

8. An unnamed poem (I’ll ask my students and fill this in later).

And for the last few minutes, he answered questions from the audience, and one of those was a student of mine. I confess: I required them to come with questions and offered extra credit if they asked one in public. It’s a little silly, but what the hell.

So for my working link that I require of my students, check out Turner’s recent work online at the New York Times Homefires blog. It’s an excellent companion to Here, Bullet.

Brian Turner

I’m taking a one post break from the work of this blog and I’m joining my students in a post about Brian Turner. He’s an Iraq war veteran and author of a volume of poems called Here, Bullet and he’s set to visit our campus this week. I read it over the summer at the beach of all places, and was not prepared for all the jabs, the alternating body blows, and round house knock out the volume delivers. In short, if I’d been wearing socks, they would have been knocked off.

Some notables from the volume include Sadiq, a meditation on…killing, and 2000 lbs. which I hope he reads when he comes to campus, as it invokes a kind of Whitman cataloging quality that probes at the edges of the conflict in unexpected ways. I mean, how can a reader not be moved by the image of an old woman near the end of her life, who says “…To have your heart broken one last time / before dying, to kiss a child given sight / of a way of life he could never live? It’s impossible, / this isn’t the way we die.” It’s unexpected, and brings into focus the cost of it all.

So here’s my working link (as I require my students to have). It comes from a reading at a college in Maine where Turner gives background on the origins of The Hurt Locker. He details a conversation he had with another solider about people trying to kill them, and the frustration in not knowing where they were to stop them.

“We just need to put them in the hurt locker,” he said.