Forever War

by Kate Gaskin

In Kate Gaskin’s compelling debut collection, Forever War, the poet offers readers an intimate view of what a military marriage is not; these are poems that disrupt consoling narratives about life on the home front, deployments and redeployments, reunions, and the soldier’s reentry into the civilian sphere. From our current military campaigns to a striking sequence about Vietnam, Gaskin confronts the seemingly infinite cycle of war in which we seem to have found ourselves, what she calls “the same / Groundhog Day of special ops / humping across dry lands / most Americans could never name.” In these poems, the military spouse articulates the indifference of many Americans civilians—"There are no explosions here,” she says, “only people shrugging / into the cold.”—and voices the grief of knowing that her husband’s “first marriage / is to the sky,” and, worse still, that her own speech must be burdened with “the dumb and bloody language” of war.
—Jehanne Dubrow, author of Stateside and Dots & Dashes

Genres: Poetry

114 pages, Paperback

Published May 29, 2020

Reviews

[Jim Whiteside · Rating 5 out of 5]

The poetics of war and soldiers has a longstanding tradition. Kate Gaskin's FOREVER WAR presents a new perspective on a well-worn road, bringing us poems from the perspective of the military wife. What surprises about this book is the deeply complex narrative -- one that does not condone war, but examines one's complicity in war. The speaker of these poems is torn between her rejection of war and violence and her love for her husband, a United States Airman. While the speaker is left behind with a young child, considering her complicity in global war and conflict, her husband loads bombs in to the belly of an airplane. In the collection's title poem, she sees her position not as solitary, but as a lineage of power: "history/is a needle quilting itself/to the same thirsty bedrock//my white ancestors claimed...there is only, in the end, the matter/of our shared complicity."

This is a bald and unsparing collection, one where life's tenuous nature is continuously at the forefront -- from concerns about the couple's baby and the speaker's own body, to dying maples, to an ocean full of hunted whales. It is a cautionary tale about the horrors of war from the perspective of the home front, and the speaker remarkably never spares herself from blame. The book is perhaps best summed up by the concluding lines of "Delta, Echo, Alpha, Romeo:" "Tell me/then, how you loaded//the bombs, how your parted/the air, how the ocean divides/breath between us. In Doha//you followed the sun/to the Gulf. Not once have I/believed we'll be spared."

[Audra Kirkpatrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having grown up in the Deep South, Kate Gaskin’s book of poems simultaneously punched me in the gut and covered me in nostalgia. Like the author, I left a small town to live all over the world as a military wife and she nails what it is like to love and loathe the South. I usually have a hard time with poetry but I could not stop reading these thoughtfully written poems that perfectly articulate living and leaving Alabama.

[Tara Ballard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kate Gaskin's Forever War interweaves beautiful imagery and rhetorical gestures, speaking to (and bravely making known) the world lived by military wives in the United States. Grounded in place, Kate Gaskin's collection is an immersive experience -- one that is rich in tenderness, vulnerability, and struggle -- through the speaker's genuine search for understanding. Gaskin wrestles with deployments, reunions, and interactions with the civilian community, and she does so with grace and an eye for the unexpected. Absolutely recommend.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

In an absolutely beautiful debut, Gaskin writes about relationships, violence, longing, and loneliness using arresting images that deftly pull the reader across borders from safe to hazardous territory within the landscape of her poems. The result is feeling of always being on one's guard within her work--never knowing where the next danger will arrive. Highly recommended.

[Kelly Grace Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gaskin is a master of evoking emotion through imagery and tight language. At times sparse and stunning as the winter landscape of Omaha, these poems trace the path of violence, relationships, and the distances whittled by each. A beautiful look at what calls to us and how we answer.

[Theodore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful, devastating. So insistently human while focusing on subjects that often leave the impact of and on humans out. I love how nature pops its head into all these stories in unexpected ways. The glimpses of Omaha are a plus for me. Highly recommended!

[Violeta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the many layers at work in this collection. Kate Gaskin’s language and imagery is so great at questioning and haunting! I dogeared so many poems. This book is one I’ll keep thinking about for a long time.

[Amorak Huey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful & heartbreaking & such attention to image & detail.

[Melissa Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Kate Gaskin's Forever War late in 2020, when the pandemic felt like it had gone on forever and would go on forever. This book--which is about a military marriage, something I don't personally relate to at all--felt like a lifeline. The anxiety, the fear, the boredom, the hope and hopelessness--it was the perfect time to read it, and it still is. This is a beautiful book.