Of War and Poetry

Mormon Boy, by Seth Brady Tucker, is a book of poetry that describes a young soldier’s time in the first Gulf War.  My favorite poem was called “Falling in Love During Wartime.”  This piece describes a soldier, barely 21 years old, and what he is missing while he is deployed.  He talks about the time he wishes he was spending with the girl he should be in love with.  For me, this poem puts in perspective the little things that war takes from us.  It not only takes lives in a literal sense, but disallows soldiers from having small, meaningful experiences such as legally buying alcohol when they turn 21, or falling in love with a pretty girl.  Mormon Boy reminds us of the small things in life that war destroys. 

Here, Bullet, by Brian Turner, is a collection of poems that guide the reader through the author’s experience in Iraq.  Turner was deployed to Iraq in 2003.  Here, Bullet is a detailed account of Turner’s experience with war, interactions with fellow soldiers and Iraqi citizens, and dreams of love and a normal life.  Many of the poems juxtapose the ideas of war, death, beauty and love.  Turner seamlessly ties in each emotion into one poem, enabling the reader to experience all four at the same time.  A great example I found was in the poem “Last Night’s Dream.”  Turner dreams of an encounter with a lover, in which every interaction is sexual, yet in some way ties back to war.  One of the lines reads: ”I am strung with wire, a huge receiver of UHF radio transmissions, frequency hopping with our tongues as we kiss.”  Turner has a talent for dancing between the ideas of love and war throughout his poems.  In his opening poem “A Soldier’s Arabic,” Turner translates the word love from English to Arabic and does the same with the word death, so as to set the tone for the entire book as we find juxtapositions of love and death, children, and war, throughout many of the poems.  In reading this book, I found it useful to do close reads of each poem, dissecting them as I went.  This is my interpretation of one of my favorite stanzas in the book from the poem, “Gilgamesh, in Fossil Relief.”  It reads:

History is a cloudy mirror made of dirt

and bone and ruin.  And love? Loss?

These are the questions we must answer

by war and famine and pestilence, and again

by touch and kiss, because each age must learn

This is the path of the sun’s journey by night

The first line describes history a mirror in which it is difficult to see a reflection because it is clouded by dirt, bone, and ruin.  It is sometimes difficult to see why history takes the course it does, as it is often plagued by death and violence.  And what of love and loss?  Turner employs contrasting words against each other: dirt, ruin, famine and pestilence, against touch, kiss, and love.  Each age, and each generation, must endure these hardships.  But they will also experience love and affection. 

The last line, one of my favorites of the book, reads: This is the path of the sun’s journey by night. I take this line to mean that although we will struggle with sickness, violence, and ills, we are also fortunate to be able to experience love and happiness.  Life is accompanied by both good and evil. 

War poetry is a great way to convey experiences of deployment.  I highly recommend both Mormon Boy and Here, Bullet.