Here, Bullet
by Brian Turner
2005 Beatrice Hawley Award
2006 Northern California Book Award in Poetry
2006 Maine Literary Award in Poetry
2006 Sheila Margaret Motton Award
A New York Times “Editor’s Choice” Selection
2006 PEN Center USA Literary Award in Poetry
A 2006 Lannan Literary Fellowship
2007 NEA Literature Fellowship in Poetry
2007 Poet’s Prize
2008 Charity Randall Citation
A harrowing, beautiful first-person account of the Iraq War by a
soldier-poet. 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 AJB’s own Doug Anderson (The Moon
Reflected Fire), Iraq war veteran Brian Turner writes powerfully affecting poetry of witness, exceptional for its beauty, honesty and
skill. Based upon Turner’s year-long 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.
praise for Here, Bullet
“As a war poet, [Brian Turner] sidesteps the classic distinction
between romance and irony, opting instead for the surreal.”
—The New Yorker
“The day of the first moonwalk, my father’s college literature
professor told his class, ‘Someday they’ll send a poet, and we’ll
find out what it’s really like.’ Turner has sent back a dispatch
from a place arguably more incomprehensible than the moon—
the war in Iraq—and deserves our thanks…”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Here, Bullet is a book of poems about the war in Iraq, written
by a veteran whose eye for the telling detail is as strategic as it
is poetic.”
—Globe and Mail
“Poetry, perhaps even more than pictures, makes war live.
We understand the true horror of World War I not because
of newsreels, but because of the searing words of Erich Maria
Remarque and Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. And Iraq
has produced its own poet, Brian Turner, who was an infantry
team leader there for a year. In 2005, he published a collection
of poems, Here, Bullet, that is destined to endure long after the
shrill arguments about the war have been forgotten.”
—Salon Magazine
“[Brian Turner’s] work is straightforward and direct. It highlights the
violence and death of the war in a manner little seen elsewhere.”
—Publishers Weekly
“With Brian Turner’s Here, Bullet, we have the first war poetry
since Yusef Komunyaaka’s Dien Cai Dau that matters.”
—Rain Taxi
“Here, Bullet” conveys the pain, the sadness, the fear, the loneliness of armed conflict with eloquent words and vivid descriptions. In a few words he can conjure up the dramatic aftermath
of a bomb in a market place that most newspapers can’t capture
in a dozen paragraphs.”
—The Progressive
“Brian Turner writes as only a soldier can, of terror and compassion, hurt and horror, sympathy and desire. He takes us into
the truth and trauma of the Iraq war in language that is precise,
delicate and beautiful, even as it tells of a suicide bomber, a
skull shattered by a bullet, a blade in a bloodgroove.”
—Andrew Himes, editor of Voices in Wartime Anthology
“Turner attempts to capture the extreme experience of war by depicting the feelings it generates: the sense of loss, hatred, humiliation, love, uncertainty, and dreamy longing for a normal life...”
—Library Journal
“Brian Turner’s poems are indispensable not only for their craft
and their penetrating lyric power, but for the circumstances
under which they were written. No book of poetry since Yusef
Komunyakaa’s Dien Cai Dau brings us as close to the realities of
combat as this, but the realities are uniquely Iraq’s. Reader, take
note: 21st century poetry, as such, may well begin here.”
—T. R. Hummer
238 Main St., Farmington, ME 04938 • (207) 778-7071• www.alicejamesbooks.org
An Affiliate of the University of Maine at Farmington
“Turner draws deep affinities with history. His epigrams include quotations from the Koran, Iraqi poets
and proverbs, and Rousseau. As such, his thematic
vision is broad as his poems work their visceral relationship to Iraq’s timeless landscape.”
—The Military Review
poems from Here, Bullet
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.
Jameel
Cowbirds rest in the groves of date palms,
whole flocks of them, white as flowers
blossoming into wings when the wind rises up.
Thistleweed bursts open in purple
while honeybees drone and hover
over the yellowing, early-summer field.
They say to produce one pound of honey,
bees must travel from flower to hive
at least twelve thousand times.
Such patience, waiting for this storm
to be carried over the far mountains,
when the earth darkens and the sky lowers
Brian Turner earned an MFA from the University of Oregon and lived abroad in South Korea for a year before
serving for seven years in the US Army. He was an infantry team leader for a year in Iraq beginning November
2003, with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd
Infantry Division. Prior to that, he was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999-2000 with the 10th Mountain
Division. His poetry has been published in Poetry Daily,
The Georgia Review and other journals, and in the Voices
in Wartime Anthology published in conjunction with the
feature-length documentary film of the same name.
Alice James Books titles are distributed to the trade by
Consortium Book Sales & Distribution and Small Press
Distribution. Individuals may order from the press
directly. AJB was named for Alice James, sister of
novelist Henry and philosopher William, whose fine
journal and gift for writing went unrecognized within her
lifetime. Alice James Books is affiliated with the University
of Maine at Farmington.
and cowbirds shield themselves under a wing,
the nectar swaying heavy within the closed flower,
the hive humming its prayer under the rain’s falling hush.
Eulogy
It happens on a Monday, at 11:20 a.m.,
as tower guards eat sandwiches
and seagulls drift by on the Tigris River.
Prisoners tilt their heads to the west
though burlap sacks and duct tape blind them.
The sound reverberates down concertina coils
the way piano wire thrums when given slack.
And it happens like this, on a blue day of sun,
when Private Miller pulls the trigger
to take brass and fire into his mouth:
the sound lifts the birds up off the water,
a mongoose pauses under the orange trees,
and nothing can stop it now, no matter what
blur of motion surrounds him, no matter what voices
crackle over the radio in static confusion,
because if only for this moment the earth is stilled,
and Private Miller has found what low hush there is
down in the eucalyptus shade, there by the river.
PFC B. Miller (1980 – March 22, 2004)
238 Main St., Farmington, ME 04938 • (207) 778-7071• www.alicejamesbooks.org
An Affiliate of the University of Maine at Farmington
Here, Bullet: publicity & events
Features:
The New York Times, “In a Word; Cut & Run” 12/25/05
The New York Times Book Review, “Editor’s Choice” 12/4/05
The New Yorker, “The Talk of the Town” 11/14/05
The Fresno Bee (Bee Washington Bureau, McClatchy Newspapers), “Valley vet’s poetry brings him fame, $2,000 prize” 11/11/05
reprinted in Washington Times Record News, KNXV-TV/www.abc15.com (Phoenix, AZ), Stars and Stripes, and elsewhere
The Lewiston (Maine) Sun-Journal, “Award-winning war poet to visit on reading tour” 11/29/05
The Bowdoin Orient (Brunswick, Maine), “Former Iraq soldier shares war experience with powerful poetry” 12/2/05
The Lewiston (Maine) Sun-Journal, “A Soldier’s Stories” 12/5/05
The News Tribune (Tacoma, WA), “Ex-Fort Lewis soldier captures Iraq’s horror stanza by stanza” 1/13/06
www.AlterNet.org, “It Should Break Your Heart to Kill” 2/13/06
The Colorado Springs Independent, Fine Print “Iraq War Vet and Poet Brings the War Home” 3/23/06
The Providence Journal, “From a War Comes Poetry to Think About” 4/9/06
Associated Press, “A Valley Where Poems Grow Like Weeds” 5/15/06
The Wave Magazine, “Mightier Than the Sword” 5/18/06
www.redding.com (Cincinnati, OH) “Former Soldier Comes to the North Stat to Read Poetry of War” 8/24/2006
Daily Record (Parsippany, NJ) “A Poet Goes to War” 9/17/06
www.metroactive.com (San Francisco, CA) “Poetry Goes to War” 9/13 -19/2006
Writer’s Digest “Poetry as Body Armor” 12/06
The Fresno Bee (Bee Washington Bureau, McClatchy Newspapers), “Fresno Poet Gets Fellowship” 12/2/06
The Mercury News (San Jose, CA)
Essay series “Home Fires” for New York Times Online 9/07-10/07
Weekend America, “Cole’s Guitar” 12/22/2007 (http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/12/21/poet/)
Reviews:
The New York Times Book Review, The Globe and Mail (Toronto), Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, The Daily Mail (London),
Rain Taxi, Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages, Military Review, Sacramento News & Review, Franklin (Maine) Journal, Wolf Moon Press
Journal, www.Bookslut.com, Café Review, In Posse Review, Pemmican Press, Watermark Books, The Veteran, Cimarron Review, San Francisco
Humanities Review, Baltimore Review, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Sun Times
Readings:
Bowdoin College, Bates College, University of Maine at Farmington, Blue Wolf (Tacoma, WA), Elliott Bay Book Company (Seattle,
WA), Virginia Military Institute, California State University at Fresno, The Poetry Center at Smith College (Northampton, MA),
Northern California Book Awards (San Francisco, CA), San Francisco Public Library Main Branch, Rhode Island Council for the Arts
(Providence, RI), Stanford University (Stanford, CA), Santa Clara University (Santa Clara, CA), University of San Francisco Emerging
Writers’ Festival, California Poets Festival (San Jose, CA), Oklahoma Arts Institute (Oklahoma City, OK), Maine Writers & Publishers
Alliance, University of Southern Maine (Portland, ME), Stonecoast Summer Writer’s Conference (Freeport, ME), Tuolumne Meadows
Poetry Festival, (Yosemite National Park), Sonoma County Book Festival (Santa Rosa, CA), Dodge Poetry Festival, Brattleboro Literary
Festival (Brattleboro, VT), University of Oregon (Eugene, OR), Uiversity of Arizona (Tuscon, AZ), 17th annual Chicago Humanities
Festival (Albion, IL), University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI), WestPoint Academy (West Point, NY), Cork Festival (Cork, Ireland),
North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC), US Naval Academy (Annapolis, MD), US Coast Guard Academy (New London, CT),
The Coming Home Project (Berkeley, CA), Benefit concert, Direct Relief International (Austin, TX), Camden County Cultural and
Heritage Commission (Haddon Township, NJ), Global Understanding Project (Monmouth, NJ), Alice James Books Benefit (Washington, DC), Cuirt Festival (Galway Ireland), Voices in Wartime (Seattle, WA), Western Washington University (Bellingham, WA), Touch
of Madness Victorian Quaffery (Cape Town, South Africa), Fullerton College (CA), University of Wisconsin (La Crosse, WI), Wisconsin
Book Fair (Eau Claire), Norwich Academy (VT), Kingdom Books (St. Johnsbury, VT), PCC Chicago (with Bruce Weigl), Westchester
Community College (Westchester, NY), Fredricksburg Community College (VA), Richard Hugo House “We Could Be Heroes” (Seattle,
WA), Fresno Poets Association (CA), University of California Bakersfield, Valencia Community College (FL), AWP 2008 (New York,
NY), A Tribute to Philip Levine (Fresno, CA), Coastal Carolina University (Conway, SC), St. Anza Festival (St. Andrews, Scotland),
Poetry & Conflict, Byre Studio Center (St. Andrews, Scotland), Changing Scotland Festival (Ullapool, Scotland), Vital Synz (Glasgow,
Scotland), New Writing North (Newcastle, England), Royal Festival Hall (London, England), Keystone College (La Plume, PA), Poetry
Now (Dublin, Ireland), International Poetry Forum (Pittsburgh, PA), Montalvo Arts Center (Saratoga, CA), Cuirt International Festival
of Literature (Ireland), Casa Romantica (San Clemente, CA) and others.
Course Adoptions:
United States Military Academy at West Point, United States Air Force Academy, California State University at Chico, Colorado State
University, Northern Illinois University, University of San Francisco, University of Southern Maine, State University of New York at
Fredonia, Western Washington University, University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, The Lesley Seminars at Lesley University, Union
County Magnet High School (Scotch Plains, NJ), US Naval Academy, University of Arizona, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI),
Babson College (Babson Park, MA), and many others.
238 Main St., Farmington, ME 04938 • (207) 778-7071• www.alicejamesbooks.org
An Affiliate of the University of Maine at Farmington
Here, Bullet: publicity & events (continued)
Interviews:
WNYC Public Radio, “The Brian Lehrer Show” 11/11/05
Maine Public Radio, “Maine Things Considered” 11/29/05
ABC News Now, “The Mix” 12/6/05
WUNC Public Radio (NC), “The State of Things” 12/23/05
NPR, “Morning Edition” 1/7/06 BBC London Radio, “The Verb”; KUOW Radio 2/18/06
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer 2/27/06
KQED Public Radio (CA), “The California Report” 3/17/06
WCSH6 – NBC (Portland, ME), “207” 11/29/05
KUOW Public Radio (Seattle, WA), 3/20/06
KSEE 24 (Fresno, CA) 5/4/06
Wisconsin Public Radio, To the Best of our Knowledge 10/29/06
WWRC 1260 AM, Progressive Talk Washington, DC 12/10/06
960 AM The Quake San Francisco 12/10/06
Air America Radio The Jon Elliott Show 1/8/07
LA Public Radio 3/07
www.kickingwind.com 9/06/07
BBC’s The Today Program 9/20/07
BBC’s The Today Program 9/20/07
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Late Night Live 9/27/07
Other:
Featured on From the Fishouse, an audio archive of emerging poets (www.fishousepoems.org); Web del Sol (www.webdelsol.org)
“A Human’s Shield,” an essay by Brian Turner, on the New York Foundation for the Arts website (www.nyfa.org)
Mentioned on numerous blogs, including www.bookslut.com and http://edwardbyrne.blogspot.com/
Poems from Here, Bullet are included in the Voices in Wartime anthology, and in the NEA’s anthology Operation Homecoming: Iraq,
Afghanistan, and the Home Front, in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families
Featured on the Maine Veterans for Peace website (http://www.vfpmaine.org/vfp.htm)
Featured in harriet, a blog from the Poetry Foundation 2/27/06 - 3/3/06
Poem included in “The Myth Project” production (San Diego, CA)
Mentioned in Andrew Himes interview in UTNE magazine
Mentioned in Salon Magazine 1/16/07
Featured prominently in Richard E. Robbins’ film Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, nominated for the 2008
Academy Award for best Documentary Feature. This film was also a part of the series America at a Crossroads, broadcast on PBS
in 2007
Featured in the Poetry Foundation Online Journal, “When Yellow Ribbons and Flag-Waving Aren’t Enough: An ex-soldier’s take on
recent war poetry.” September 2007
Lannan Readings and Conversations: with Bruce Weigl and Michael Silverblatt 3/5/08 (Santa Fe, NM)
United Kingdom Tour with Bloodaxe Books, March 2008
Anticipated:
Interviews:
WKPT Radio Network (serving TN, VA and NC), AM Tri-Cities with Janet Johnson, Washington Monthly on the Radio
KCRW, Southern California’s leading National Public Radio affiliate, Bookworm, with Michael Silverblatt
Minnesota Public Radio (covering MN and parts of WI, MI, IA, ID and the Dakotas) Midmorning with Kerri Miller
Events:
September 22-26: Participant: Fall for the Book Festival (Fairfax, VA)
September 29: Reading: Plymouth Congregational Church (Minneapolis, MN)
October 6: Reading: University of South Florida (St. Petersburg, FL)
October 7: Reading: University of Tampa (Tampa, FL)
October 8 Reading: Eckerd College (St. Petersburg, FL)
October 9: Reading: Miami-Dade College (Miami, FL)
October 10: Reading: Valencia City College (Orlando, FL)
October 13: Reading: Flagler College (St. Augustine, FL)
October 14: Reading: Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL)
October 15: Reading: University of Nevada (Reno, NV)
October 16: Reading: Sierra Nevada College (Incline Village, NV)
October 17: Reading: Lake Tahoe Community College (South Lake Tahoe, CA)
October 23: Reading: Seattle Community College, (Seattle, WA)
November 11: Reading: Brookdale Community College (Lincroft, NJ)
November 14: Reading: College of Southern Maryland (La Plata, MD)
November 20: Reading: Grayson County College (Denison, TX)
February 11-15: Reading: Blue Flower Arts Reading, AWP (Chicago, IL)
February 16: Reading: Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, NC)
February 18: Reading: SUNY Fredonia (Fredonia, NY)
238 Main St., Farmington, ME 04938 • (207) 778-7071• www.alicejamesbooks.org
An Affiliate of the University of Maine at Farmington