Here, Bullet

by Brian Turner

A first-person account of the Iraq War by a solider-poet, winner of the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award. Adding his voice to the current debate about the US occupation of Iraq, in poems written in the tradition of such poets as Wilfred Owen, Yusef Komunyakaa ( Dien Cai Dau ), Bruce Weigl ( Song of Napalm ) and Alice James’ own Doug Anderson ( The Moon Reflected Fire ), Iraqi war veteran Brian Turner writes power-fully affecting poetry of witness, exceptional for its beauty, honesty, and skill. Based on Turner’s yearlong tour in Iraq as an infantry team leader, the poems offer gracefully rendered, unflinching description but, remarkably, leave the reader to draw conclusions or moral lessons. Here, Bullet is a must-read for anyone who cares about the war, regardless of political affiliation.

Genres: Poetry, War, Military Fiction, Nonfiction, Memoir, The United States Of America, Read For School

80 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2005

About the author

Brian Turner is the author of a memoir, My Life as a Foreign Country, and five collections of poetry— Here, Bullet and Phantom Noise; with The Wild Delight of Wild Things, The Goodbye World Poem, and The Dead Peasant’s Handbook due out from Alice James Books in Fall, 2023. He’s the editor of The Kiss and co-editor of The Strangest of Theatres. A musician, he’s written and recorded albums with The Interplanetary Acoustic Team, including 11 11 (Me Smiling) and American Undertow with The Retro Legion. His poems and essays have been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, National Geographic, and Harper’s, among other fine journals, and he was featured in the documentary Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, nominated for an Academy Award. A Guggenheim Fellow, he’s received a USA Hillcrest Fellowship in Literature, the Amy Lowell Traveling Fellowship, the Poets’ Prize, and a Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. He lives in Orlando with his dog, Dene, the world’s sweetest golden retriever.

Reviews

[Zach · Rating 2 out of 5]

It seems impossible to me to come out against this book without offending everyone. But what if we separate the situation from the writing itself?

Simply put, in my humble opinion, the writing just isn't very good. Turner had a huge opportunity here, but instead he paints a picture of the Iraq war in the way one would render a pretty sunset. Not that war is glorified here, in fact, quite the opposite. Problem is, it's not done in a particularly forward thinking or interesting manner. And now I am likewise guilty of an inability to divorce context from content. As a populist poet perhaps he succeeds. The craft is predictably fine. I can even see how it would appeal to a lot of people, which is also ok. But if I want pretty straight up "war poetry," I'll take Komunyakaa any day for his attention to sound.

[Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

🩶The Heart of a Soldier Poet

Easily read.

Uneasily absorbed.

Important. Significant.

(I would like to see some poetry from the women who have been in combat in the 21st century. I want to hear their voices too.)

This book takes its place among the other powerful and painful poetry of past wars going back to The Iliad and the Hebrew Scriptures and even beyond that.

Highly accessible. Highly recommended.

[Sierra · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was given to me as a gift and it is one of my favorite gifts i've ever received

[Trish · Rating 5 out of 5]

There can't be anything beautiful about war, can there? Why then is Brian Turner's poetry so beautiful? How can he choose words which soothe and comfort at the same time they break our hearts?

Finding Brian Turner and Yusef Komunyakaa as a result of reading Kevin Powers' Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting: Poems and his transcendent The Yellow Birds was the most rewarding thing that happened to me this Spring. Finding them may also have the longest lasting impact of anything else that has happened. Time will tell.

It is difficult to imagine Turner as a soldier. Did he stand still in a street exploding, capturing pictures through the shutters of his eyes? Did he turn a phrase on a curling tongue while listening to a command, standing at a barricade, or licking his lover? His eyes are old eyes, and he reaches further, deeper:

Alhazen of Basra

If I could travel a thousand years back
to August 1004, to a small tent
where Alhazen has fallen asleep among books
about sunsets, shadows, and light itself,
I wouldn't ask whether light travels in a straight line,
or what governs the laws of refraction, or how
he discovered the bridgework of analytical geometry;
I would ask about the light within us,
what shines in the mind's great repository
of dream, and whether he's studied the deep shadows
daylight brings, how light defines us.

Turner's eloquence stems from a sensitivity so fine that the lines fairly quiver. In 2000 lbs. each stanza imagines the lives of victims of a car bomber, many of them blameless Iraqis with lovers, fathers, sisters, not forgetting to add the sound of the detonation's aftermath. The buffeting wave washes over us and leaves us with a vivid sense of smell.

Sadiq

It is a condition of wisdom in the archer to be patient
because when the arrow leaves the bow, it returns no more. --Sa'di

It should make you shake and sweat,
nightmare you, strand you in a desert
of irrevocable desolation, the consequences
seared into the vein, no matter what adrenaline
feeds the muscle of its courage, no matter
what god shines down on you, no matter
what crackling pain and anger
you carry in your fists, my friend,
it should break your heart to kill.

[Texx Norman · Rating 5 out of 5]

War poetry has the great opportunity of sinking into the muck of premeditated maudlin stuff. You know, war is hell, and if you were there you feel like you should be able to break hearts and upset stomachs, gross out the pantywaists and come off like the strong survivor that you are, but Here, Bullet does not do that. I don't read a single poem that glorifies war and tries to inspire the young to join up and get themselves killed. What I read is someone who has been changed not just by war, but by words, topography, cultures, and a recognition that security and fairness are concepts that have no place in a war zone. It is important that we read the poetry of those who were there. These poems do not preach. These poems do not have an political agenda. These poems see. The poet has taken me there and doused me with buckets of fear and thought. Even a long life is short. I need poems that recognize the value of life, and how fragile life is, everywhere. I need poems that see how easily we die, and still moves me to value life. Even the poem where the soldier seems to invite the bullet to enter his body. . . Here. Bullet I'm right here, waiting for you. Even such a concept helps me, hints to me how conflicting all conflicts are, especially conflicts of war.

[Allison Goldstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such an impressive book. Usually I think of poets and the military in separate literary groupings. For instance, if a vet or another member of military personel happened to write a book, it almost always sounds like a non-writer just getting their thoughts down on paper, usually with the help of one or more amazing editors that pull it into focus. Not so with this book. Brian Turner really does a brilliant job writing gorgeous, layered poetry that actually sounds like a poet wrote it, and not someone dabbling in a craft outside their expertise. He has this very delicate tone which is intensified by the graphic action going on around him, which create poems that feel both completely involved with the premise while at the same time feel non-judgmental and somehwat omnipotent. The way he juxtaposes images with ideas and feelings and makes seemingly unrelatable situations familiar with such clarity is truly a gift. I would reccommend this book to poetry fans, political/history fans, and pretty much anyone in America who is interested in a fresh, thoughtful, and very much needed voice from the frontlines of Iraq.

[C · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I picked up this book, I was afraid that it was published more because it was an American soldier's voice from Iraq. By that, I mean, I thought that the writing may not be up to par and that it was published purely for political reasons and not because of a strong voice.

I was wrong. Brian Turner's poetry in this book is amazing. Powerful. Distraught. Disturbing. Beautiful. There is a subtlety here that I thought would be missing. Honestly, this is the best book of poetry that I have read recently and I am so glad that I accidentally ran into it in a small local bookstore. And glad that I gave it a chance.


On a more personal note, I found one line of the book to be bizarrely appropriate for me to have read. The third stanza of the poem "Cole's Guitar" begins with the line

I'm in Wyoming. I'm in New York.

While adjusting to this move from New York to Wyoming, it just struck me how odd that line would appear. I guess they are two of the most opposite places you could throw together in a line if you're talking about the U.S. And I think part of me right now is in both places.

It was just odd.

[TK421 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection has successfully brought me closer to my brothers who currently serve in hostile environs, while also placing a distance between them and me that can never be bridged.

[sofia ✧*:･ﾟ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoy my English essay:

Poetry can be a privilege, an aesthetic indulgence of intellectual minds, but it can also be a necessity, an unbearable weight that requires releasing. In some cases, poetry is as inevitable as it is unbearable, and yet, it must exist. That is the impression I got from reading Brian Turner’s Here, Bullet, whose very title conveys the urgency of his writing; naming his collection “Here, Bullet” echos a near taunt, as if Turner is daring the death and destruction of his subject matter to catch him, daring it to make him stop writing, knowing full well that it won’t work because the urgency of what he has to say exceeds any self-protective instinct reliant on comfort. Throughout his poems, Turner actively seeks to make the reader uncomfortable; he wants to make people feel the emotions and go through a fraction of the experiences that he, and several others, went through in Iraq. However, not only that, but he also offers an array of perspectives on the same war, forcing the reader to sympathize with American soldiers, as well as Iraqi terrorists. Turner’s brilliance lies in his ability to express emotion and experience, many times not his own, but deftly laid bare for the reader to interpret.
The collection is largely comprised of free-verse poetry, however, the literary techniques used vary from poem to poem to maximize the effectiveness of each individual piece. Nevertheless, there are several elements that show up with relative consistency throughout the collection. For instance, the motif of music is present in several of the poems, to varying degrees and purposes, but the idea of reimagining something horrific as a beautiful song, or at least giving it a level of control and purpose is a present theme in the book. Another cohesive element is the tonal shift from Part I to Part IV. Part I begins the collection with an air of poetic prowess and a focus on symbolism and metaphorical meaning, however, as the book progresses we see a shift into poems that are descriptive, direct, and even curt at times; it is almost as though the author lost interest in being coy with his meaning. As the horrors become more explicit so does Turner’s voice, resulting in poems such as “Body Bags”, “AB Negative (The Surgeon’s Poem)”, and “Autopsy”. These poems are not any less poetic than their symbolic counterparts, and neither are they disinterested in themselves; if anything they are especially interested in their subject matter, and capturing what their scene was like. Through these poems, Turner compiles perspectives, and they don't require any meaning other than what they present to be, which is, a perspective of a person in a horrible situation. There is a power to writing like that; not only is it immediately clear to the reader what Turner is trying to tell them, but also the stark contrast between flowery poetry and abrasive prose furthers the emotional reaction Turning attempts to evoke. Furthermore, amid all the depictions of war and terror, Turner makes sure to include a selected few “breather poems” as I like to call them. That notion is present in poems such as “Into the Elephant Grass” and “Curfew”, which communicate a sense of calm and mundanity in the middle of war, by no means conveying exemption from horror, only adjustment to it. The poems do not convey that people live fine in wartime, but merely that they can live, and that in it of itself is a relief to the reader. Turner does a great job showcasing the different perspectives facing war, but he also makes sure to include the times of rest and relative peace, which, while outnumbered by the violence depicting poems, still exist.
Moving into a deeper analysis of individual poems, I will select a few that embody the different tones Turner presents in his collection and my personal favorites. The first poem the reader encounters in the book is “A Soldier’s Arabic”. It is the opening work and thus sets the tone for the rest of the collection. In this piece, Turner introduces the reader to certain Arabic words such as “habib” and “maut” meaning “love” and “death” respectively. The author conveys the wrongness of love in a place like Iraq by writing that habib “(...) is written from right / to left, starting where we would end it / and ending where we might begin.” (1). However the ‘wrongness’ is not inherent, it is only over before it begins because of the environment created by war, where love can exist only from right to left in a writing pattern we don’t understand. In the next stanza, he touches on his subject matter, exposing the reader for the first time to the historical context in which he writes: “Where we would end a war / another might take as a beginning, / or as an echo of history, recited again” (1). This most likely refers to the war the United States declared on Iraq after the 9/11 attacks, and perhaps even to the Iraqi Civil War that took place after the US withdrawal of troops. Turner is using the same inverse vocabulary notion of end and beginning to juxtapose war with love, thereby leading the reader to the conclusion that war begets war, and violence begets violence, however, that is also where love ends and where we might begin it. The poem then alludes to the word for death, which as a reader we immediately associate with the only other Arabic word we know, love, thus drawing a parallel between the two. It’s also interesting to note that the words are placed in between commas, almost like an afterthought, letting the reader know that the poem is not about a real alphabet or a real language, but rather a learned form of communication that comes from experience. This idea comes back at the end of the poem when Turner writes, “This is a language made of blood. / It is made of sand, and time. / To be spoken, it must be earned.” (1). In this introductory poem, the reader learns about the language that will be spoken throughout the rest of this collection, not Arabic, but the language of war, a language that is earned, the language of a soldier in a place where every citizen is a soldier in their own right.
As previously mentioned, an important aspect of Turner’s work is providing perspective into different pieces that form the puzzle of Iraq, and perhaps one of the clearest examples of that is “In the Leupold Scope”. The poem begins with the narrator detailing a woman hanging laundry of the dead. She’s described to be in “sparkling green”, and the speaker recounts the clothes she is hanging to be “tangerine and teal”, and “cotton shirts dyed blue”. This use of color evokes a sentiment of liveliness and excitement, however, it is taken back by the connotation that comes with the word “dyed”, symbolizing how it is a contrived sense of vitality, the illusion of liveliness, directly juxtaposed with the narrator’s use of death and deadly surroundings to counter the woman’s actions. Furthermore, another notable aspect of the poem is the use of enjambment in the line, “(...) to find a woman in sparkling green, standing / among antennas and satellite dishes (...)” (7). The cut of the line after the word “standing” makes the reader's initial interpretation of the line to be one of pride and perseverance; the woman is standing and surviving. Soon, however, the reader figures out that she is standing among antennas and satellites but also the dead, which gives a second meaning to the initial cry of livelihood. Through his use of symbolic elements such as “noxious black smoke”, the speaker attempts to remind the reader that she is alive in a deadly place; however, the reader is still drawn to the positive and bright aspects of the poem in a way that not only do they forget that she is in danger, but the very fact that the entirety of this poem takes place through the scope of a rifle. That aspect becomes starkly clear in the closing line of the poem, “(...) women with breasts swollen by milk, / men with shepherd-thin bodies, children / running hard into the horizon’s curving lens.” (7). At that point, the reader is brought violently back to the title and beginning of the piece; all takes place within the shot. The speaker views this scene behind a gun, which encourages a sense of danger, knowing that the live woman is only one trigger pull away from joining the others in the Leupold scope. The poem’s main subject is death, but its brilliance is that even while actively telling you that the people are in peril, it allows you to forget; in a way mimicking the soldier’s experience from his detached post watching this lively woman, he almost forgets he might have to kill her someday.
Another poem that showcases Turner’s use of perspective is “The Al Harishma Weapons Market”. This work details the nightly routine of Akbar, a man who kills American soldiers for money to support his son. This poem is particular because it not only shows the point of view of an archetypal antagonistic figure, “the terrorist”, but it also makes you empathize with him, and shows you how he is a person, who loves, cares, fears, and most of all, is a victim of war. Turner comes back to the motif of music in this poem, as a way of smoothing over the horrors of war. Turner likens Akbar’s wrapping of his AK-47 to a musician with his instrument and later shows Akbar calming his son by telling him the gunfire is “just the drums, a new music”. The use of this motif through similies conveys a coping mechanism for people in traumatic situations to ease their suffering, perhaps by likening it to something beautiful. To the reader, it illustrates a further juxtaposition, and perhaps even an emotional reaction to seeing the lengths people go to palliate their surroundings. Furthermore, Turner uses the symbol of the glow-in-the-dark stars to convey the emotional justification for Akbar’s terrorism. He is not a true believer, but he does what he has to to put food on his table and give his son a better chance at life. During the gunshot, it is clear that, like the stars that only glow in the dark, his son will only be able to grow and prosper if Akbar accepts the dark in his stead, and that is how he justifies his actions. The beauty of this poem is that Turner is not telling you if Akbar is right or wrong, he even returns to the motif of habib and the wrongness that comes with loving during wartime, to show us that there is no right or wrong. Nevertheless, Turner presents you with a perspective from a human being and invites you to listen.
Lastly, I wanted to briefly touch on some of the more direct poems, such as “What Every Soldier Should Know”, which comes directly after “The Al Harishma Weapons Market”. The mere act of placing these poems back to back creates an effect of shock and contrast for the reader. While the latter shows the humanity of a terrorist in an intimate way, the former exposes the reader to the dangers of being a soldier in a curt, factual way. The poem is frightening in its empirical description of inhumane acts. Another piece that uses shock and directness to move the reader is “2000 lbs.”, which describes a suicide bombing through the multiple perspectives of the victims. However, what is interesting about that poem is that, while it does pose the point of view of the bomber, the poem does not end with him; it goes on through the lingering spirits of the people who died, moving through the world, trying to understand their new reality. While they are dead, they do not allow the violence that happened to them to define what they do next. In that same vein is “9-Line Medevac”, which is nothing more than the interaction between a soldier, whose comrades have been injured, with the closest Medevac line; however, the increasing despair at the impotency of the narrator within his context fills the reader with anguish, similar to the speaker’s, and sadness at the normalcy of the situation for the medical team.
In closing, we may conclude that Brian Turner’s Here, Bullet is a brilliant collection of poems that, above all else, convey emotion and move the reader to sympathize with a plethora of perspectives that experience the horrors of the Iraqi war. Turner does not ask anything of us other than our time and open-mindedness to understand a view different from our own, to put ourselves in someone else's position, and to remember that we are all humans and all deserving of love, comfort, and life.

Turner, Brian. Here, Bullet. Alice James Books, 2011.

[Jee Koh · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Here, Bullet" is about miscomprehensions as much as it is about the misadventures of war. The book foregrounds the Arabic language in the prelude poem, and in the titles of many poems thereafter. It is the book's contention that the poet has the right and the authority to deploy the language because he, and his fellow soldiers, has paid for it in blood. Turner was there fighting the war as an infantry team leader with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team in Iraq. The book does not, however, sufficiently interrogate the weaponization of translation, how the learning of Arabic enabled the American military to invade and conquer. The poem "What Every Soldier Should Know" begins to do so, with its acknowledgement of the Other, the misspelled graffiti sprayed on the overpasses that says, "I will kell you, American." To speak to the Other, to threaten and to kill, one has to speak in the other's tongue. But the poem ends with American fears instead, that the child or woman chatting amiably with you one moment would dance over your corpse in the next. Some poems in this volume are insufficiently transformed from incident and detail. The pressure to record, to memorialize, was simply too strong. Some of the best poems are erotic in their inspiration, when desire is powerfully mixed with fear and hatred, in a power keg.

[Bethany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who says a soldier can't be a poet? In this one short book, Brian Turner became one of my favorite poets. His poems are visceral, emotional, sometimes violent, tangible, and above all, REAL. Personally, I think poetry is the best way to really experience a place or event through literature. That isn't true for everyone, obviously, but it is for me. Although I will never truly understand what soldiers go through, this short anthology has brought me just a little bit closer.

A few things that strike me: Brian Turner, even while he experiences the worst things war has to offer, never loses his humanity. He's caring, he's observant, he's still able to recognize the beauty of the place he is stationed, even if that beauty is soaked in violence. He never loses his ability to care for people, to love, and in fact wonders in his second to last poem if this year as a soldier has made him a lover. In another poem, "Sadiq", he says that no matter what happens to you or how angry you are, you should never enjoy killing.

Every poem in this book struck me. Many of them made me feel as if I'd lost my breath. They are absolutely fantastic. True wonders.

[W · Rating 5 out of 5]

“If they die here, what will it matter? The plains of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, this land of confluence and heat will become their nation, and even if they live, it will be theirs as well--the land that tested their souls and changed them-“


Three Selected Poems:


———
HERE, BULLET

If a body is what you want,
then here is bone and gristle and flesh.
Here is the clavicle-snapped wish,
the aorta's opened valves, the leap
thought makes at the synaptic gap.
Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,
that inexorable flight, that insane puncture
into heat and blood. And I dare you to finish
what you've started. Because here, Bullet,
here is where I complete the word you bring
hissing through the air, here is where I moan
the barrel's cold esophagus, triggering
my tongue's explosives for the rifling I have
inside of me, each twist of the round
spun deeper, because here, Bullet,
here is where the world ends, every time.


———
LAST NIGHT’S DREAM

In the dream her breasts become confused in my lips. I shoot
an azimuth to her navel while her fingertips touch me with
concussions, as if explosives rang through the nerves of my body,
as if I am strung with wire, a huge receiver of UHF radio
transmissions, frequency hopping with our tongues as we kiss
and I slide into her with a sound of flashbang grenades that
make her eyes cloud over in smoke from the heat of it.

In the dream she kisses Arabic into my skin and I understand
every word of it, I transcribe it backwards into cuneiform and
stone, I rename the arteries and veins for every river and wadi
from Dohuk north to Basra south, I feel for this geography of
pleasure, my tongue is a marker that writes even in the rain,
even in salt and sweat, and I write with it now, over every curve
and turn of her body.

In the dream our orgasm destroys a nation, it leaves thermite
and gunpowder in the air above us, a crackling of radio static as
we kiss on, long into the denouement of skin and fire, where
medevac helicopters fly in the dark caverns of our lungs in
search of the wounded, and we breathe them one to another,
a deep rotorwash of pain and bandages.


———
SADIQ

It should make you shake and sweat,
nightmare you, strand you in a desert
of irrevocable desolation, the consequences
seared into the vein, no matter what adrenaline
feeds the muscle its courage, no matter
what god shines down on you, no matter
what crackling pain and anger
you carry in your fists, my friend,
it should break your heart to kill.

[Stephen Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whether one agrees with war or not, conflict is a reality that most human beings seem unable to avoid. Peaceful human beings should at least try to understand all facets of this issue. One way to get a feel for what is happening in war is to read about it, and in this manner poets should read about it in their genre. In any event, poet, prose reader, novelist, peacemaker, warrior—anyone will not be disappointed with this book. Turner uses plain yet descriptive language to bring the horrors and surrealism of war to the reader.

[Lavanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super je.

IZVOLI, METAK

Ako je tijelo to što želiš,
onda evo kostiju, hrskavice i tkiva.
Evo za sreću slomljene ključne kosti,
otvorenih ventila aorte, evo misli
što preskače procijep među sinapsama.
Evo provale adrenalina koju tako žudiš,
tog neumoljivog leta, te sulude punkture
u vrućini i krvi. Izazivam te da završiš
to što si započeo. Izvoli, metak, evo
dovršavam riječ što uz siktaj je pronosiš
zrakom, zavijajući u hadnom ezofagu
cijevi, puneći eksplozivom svoga jezika
pušku što je nosim u sebi, da bi svako zrno
sjelo što dublje u šaržer, zato izvoli, Metak,
neka ovaj svijet uz tebe skončava, zauvijek i iznova.

[HF · Rating 3 out of 5]

A "boots-on-the-ground" account of author's experiences.

Have mixed feelings about this book; some poems were evocative, others felt like a telegrammed short note of updates to command base than drawing you in the imagery.

* picked up this book from Scottish Poetry Library (Edinburgh)

[D.A. Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

To be honest I'd expected a book that drew praise because it came from the warfront and not from the perceived old boy network of academics. This book is much better than that, many of the pages transport the reader into Balad, Mosul and many of the forward bases in Iraq. I think the best compliment you can give to poetry about a real event is that it held up a mirror to the experience and let the reader taste the events in Iraq. Here, Bullet did that and not just about facing danger, but the care providers, the families and girlfriends, loneliness and the suicide epidemic.
Much of this brought back memories.

From Ashbah, 'The ghosts of American soldiers
wander the streets of Balad by night
. . .
the desert wind blowing trash
down the narrow alleys as a voice

sounds from the minaret'

Whether Turner is speaking of the dead exhaustion of multiple missions or that the ghosts of the departed still linger, both realities are true and Turner allows the both a presence without interpreting for the reader.

In R&R he paints a convincing picture of the Soldier as much more than the robotic symbol of foreign policy, one who has the life of a lover, of family, of mission all fighting for space in the same mind.
'I have a lover with hair that falls
like autumn leaves on my skin.
Water that rolls in smooth and cool
as anesthesia. Birds that carry
all my bullets into the barrel of the sun.'

If there is a complaint, and it's not much of one, each poem is buried in the psyche of one Soldier. The poems are deeply confessional. There's another side of the words from loved ones, the commo between Soldiers that is hinted at but it makes me feel that something personal to the poet is held at arm's length. Again, it's minor because most writers cannot get the feeling of one set of emotions as deeply as this one does in '2000 pounds' showing how a bomb blast alters everyone.

One of the best poems at showing these lingering effects comes toward the end in 'Night in Blue.'

'I have only the shadows under the leaves
to take with me, the quiet of the desert,
the low fog of Balad, orange groves
. . . .
I have a woman crying in my car
late at night when the stars go dim,
moonlight and sand as a resonance
of the dust of bones, and nothing more.'

Worth every penny and the time it takes to read it over and over.

[Uroš Đurković · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ovovekovna ratna lirika - Brajan Tarner je zaista učestvovao u Ratu u Iraku - narastajući nespokoj uobličava se u nisu potresnih pesama punih smrti, eksplozija, municije, razaranja, a ispod svih bezočnosti nazire se drevnost civilizacije od koje je i sama književnost potekla.

[Ryandake · Rating 5 out of 5]

i don't feel particularly qualified to comment on poetry, altho i like the stuff and have read it off and on for 35 years. i have a peculiar fondness for war poets in particular--well, post-WWI war poets. they so often strip the jingoism and "patriotic" bullshit from the actual experience.

Turner does so as well--i defy anyone to feel that heroic backwash after reading "2000 lbs."--but he does something else quite unique: he weaves us a palimpsest of Iraq and Iraqis and of all the peoples who have warred there, invaders and indigeous alike. the reader feels cut loose, unbounded by time, as if the effort to understand this latest incarnation of war needs no specific causes. don't misunderstand--i'm not saying that Turner finds war there somehow inevitable because of the place or the people. his empathy for everybody caught up in it--civilians, military, invaders, defenders, people just trying to get by--is nearly palpable in every poem. but it's as if war is some free-floating entity that visits here, visits there, across time; its purposes and meanings opaque.

if this is poorly expressed here, it's my limitation, not Turner's. this book is a gem. if you'd like to set aside the swagger of the Bush and the inane natter of the pundit class, and try just to experience what it felt like there, read the book. you will be rewarded.

[Aaron Geiger · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe Here, Bullet is a classic example of a standard, accessible collection of poetry caught up with current events. Don't get me wrong, there are great poetic moments that Turner captures (such as the image of spilled brains as cranes lifting off from the Euphrates), but I had trouble with Tuner's capitalization of the war. The moments seemed overly selected and heightened, even though there is an attempt at subtlety and separation. And it seems difficult to want to say, "I'm not a particular aficionado of this work," for fear of going against American convention. We, as a society, want to coddle the hero-narrative, especially when our appointed heroes brush off the moniker and chalk it up to duty. Additionally, I wish I could understand the need to poeticize gruesome scenes; I believe poetry has transcended that after WWI and WWII. Sorry, Turner, but when this came out it was way too soon.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally finished reading the last of these poems!! These really resonate with me. I haven't been this excited about poetry for a long time. This book should be a companion to any non-fiction book about the war in Iraq. The images and anguish in these pages is as palpable as any personal narrative or Youtube video. An awesome accomplishment that not only reflects Americans at war but the civilian people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. So many favorites in this book. These are the type of poems that should be committed to memory: The Hurt Locker; Here, Bullet; 9-Line Medevac, 2000 lbs.: these are some of the more memorable for me. An emotional journey just reading these. If you want to be a witness to war, then draw up a chair and start reading these masterpieces. It's hard to read them in one sitting. They are gems that must be read and read again.

[Kelsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone whose father went to Iraq/Kuwait several times with the 1st Cavalry, I thought I'd heard and seen it all. But Turner offers something so much more poignant and raw than even the most eloquent of imbedded reporters. He does the near-impossible by writing descriptive verse without seeming too verbose or self-indulgent. There is no mock-humility in his tone, nor is it romanticized. Turner gives a voice to those who need to be heard. Should be required reading for everyone interested in the GWOT; even those who are against the American presence in the Middle East.

[Deirdre · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful short collection of poems from the battlefield by a non-commissioned officer. These hit close to home as they are from Mosul in 2004 when we both were there. I also saw the author in Portland Maine where he read several of these poems. They are great poems that speak to the hearts of Soldiers from the heart of a soldier. Publishers Weekly claimed "The verse in this book is not good", greatly lowering my regard for them. The verse is wonderful.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vivid and powerful, sometimes achingly sad. The voice in these poems is that of a young man who has been made old by what he's seen and done. This is a fitting companion volume to The Warrior by Frances Richey. Anyone who wants to understand the war in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or any other, should include this in their reading list.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want to read a book of poetry written by an Iraq war veteran that is of the same (or arguably higher) caliber of Civil War veteran's work of poetry then you should read this. There is no political point being made in this work, just the author taking us to the battlefield and trying to explain the emotion felt during the war.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best modern voices I have heard in a long while. I guess some critics like to talk about the author's lack of technical skill, I say that such a thing doesn't matter when the simple voice of the poetry is so clear, the words so moving, and personally I did not find anything lacking.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poems about the Iraq War that are actually worth reading. The imagery drives the poems and communicates any "message" subtlely. Occasionally, the poems seem in need of another draft or two, but many compelled me to read them over and over--"2000 lbs," for example.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poems about the war in Iraq. Turner captures death with great skill in his poems. The only missing for me was a greater sense of him as a person. To learn about the Iraq War, it is still best to read the big three non-fiction books: Cobra II, Fiasco, and The Gamble.

[Idyll · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am still very shaken up from reading these poems. It's an unflinching account of war by a soldier. He puts you right in the middle of all the horror, where the decent cannot be separated from the troubled, and everyone's soul languishes outside their body.

[Kent · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is difficult to spell out my various responses to Turner’s book. On one hand, it registers the violence of war, what it would be to witness that kind of violence. Especially in poems like “9-Line-Medevac” and “2000 lbs.”, the limitless horror that radiates out from battle is concrete. On the other hand, these poems mainly revolve around the poet’s awareness of this violence and the loss it brings, his perspective, his capacity to understand the significance of being stationed in Iraq, to be exposed to an enemy. I’m unsure whether I’m intended to read the book mainly as an argument about injustice. Its broad lines appear coarse in their forcefulness and perhaps, for me, uninteresting in their poetry. Poetically, I enjoy a reading that revolves around the specifics of a day. One day, for instance, when a man would have jumped from a roof, and then wrested the knife from a US soldier while the soldier was trying to give him first aid. Poems like this illustrate a sharpening sensitivity to time, and a dulling understanding of time. What does it mean when time can be marked by unusual events like this? For me, military service was always about time, and a poetry that recorded the fabric of time, as Turner lived his in Iraq, would shed the sharp, faceted poetic light I find interesting. Turner’s poems often serve these these types of events in a muted but spectacularly colorful palette.

It’s a dark dailiness recurring in many of the poems, drawing on the lyrical narrative tradition that was like a whole vibe, like a whole school of poetic thinking, where some thought or event initiates the poem. There is something occasioning the lyrical narrative, and it can range from something insignificant, like an article in a newspaper recalling something your father said when you were 10, or the narrative can come from something explicitly substantial, like witnessing to racial bias, and the effect it’s had on the poet’s life. The lyrical narrative poem proved (and continues to prove to an extent) a helpful scaffolding for arranging the events of the poem.

And when used iteratively, as Turner does in his book, it establishes and reinforces the poet’s sense of who he sees himself as. What it means to be a US soldier patrolling Iraq during the Iraq War of the 2000s. Perhaps the book’s greatest significance is its shift in perspective, focusing entirely on the personal over the political. At least where the “political” might have incorporated the controversies that brought US soldiers into Iraq. Turner keeps the focus on what he would have experienced. In a country that has a history of war. That has histories outside of war. He tries seeing himself in the eyes of Iraqi insurgents, who would see him merely as a pawn sent to Iraq by the US government. And on the margin, his longing for women, and his camaraderie with fellow soldiers.

The poems are absorbed in self-awareness. I wonder, though, about the single dark note each poem sounds. And how the poems almost feel obliged to sound that note. As though they wouldn’t be communicating their authentic position if they were anything but somber, full of gravitas, and observing the emptiness of, say, a desert wind. This is further complicated because the book is structured to focus on the poet. And only after reading three-quarters of the book does radical violence appear. It’s like the poet plays into what people would expect to hear from someone in the line of fire. I wonder how the book would read if a poem like “2000 lbs.” had appeared at the end of the first section. It makes me think of Philip Metres’s Shrapnel Maps, whose depiction of a suicide bomber is placed throughout the book. I wonder how this might complement the poet’s gravitas in many of the poems.

Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried provides a contrast. Soldiers died in the unit “Tim O’Brien” (the fiction’s narrator) was assigned to. His unit was confronted with direct orders to perform senseless violence. In those short stories, the soldiers are bewildered and saddened. They are lost among the various rationalizations they share with each other so it will feel OK they’re doing what they’re doing. Turner’s sentiment, rather than the confusion which he often literally describes, seems to have already resolved on a depressive note before the poem even begins.

I understand Turner’s book came at a time when people in the United States needed to see something that was outside the unproductive politics that had deployed so many US military units to the region. I understand Turner’s poems elaborate a context for the soldier’s life in a hostile environment, the places where he senses hostility, and the hostility he can’t possibly see but feels. The title poem for the book, “Here, Bullet” truly speaks to the dilemma of serving your country, and the heartless mathematics it rests on.

[Artin T · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the book Here, Bullet the author Brian Turner uses this as a tool to somehow manage to describe war and what it was like using beautiful and soothing language. At first glance it may not seem like he is making out war to be such an awful thing however, once critically reading each poem you get a better understanding of what Turner is talking about. Brian Turners Here, Bullet is a book of poems that describe his first hand experience on what it was like fighting a war in Iraq from a United States army member. Each poem is a completely different story on the ugliness of war that one must read multiple times in order to get a grasp of what is being said. Every re-read of each poem in Here, Bullet is like reading a completely different poem since you will pick up on things that you may not have after just one read.

Two of my favorite poems from Here, Bullet are “What Every Soldier Should Know” and “Observation Post #798” since there was such strong symbolism in each. In the poem “What Every Soldier Should Know” by Brian Turner, it is about the psychological thoughts of an American soldier in the Middle East during a war. It compares the Western ideas and norms to the almost unbearable war environment in the Middle East. Brian Turner continues on to talk about the dangers of war and he does so by using war slang in the enemy language and explains what each one means. In the poem “Observation Post #798” also by Brian Turner, it is about a soldier who is over watching a market district. The soldier then finds a “brothel house”, also known as a whorehouse where he attempts to look at the girls through the window. Eventually a woman comes out and he uses binoculars to look at her, this girl reminds him of his loved ones and that he is still alive. You will have to read these poems yourself to truly understand the impressive and unique symbols that are being used by Turner.