Back from Bedlam: Brian Turner

In his article, “To Bedlam and Back,” that appears in the New York Times this week, poet Brian Turner writes about the difficulties facing soldiers when they make the transition from war to home. Even as a veteran, an infantry sergeant who served both in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Iraq, Turner questions his own perspective on this issue: “I guess what I’m wondering most is, as a country that is currently at war, how do our veterans rejoin the life waiting for them back home? How do they rejoin the tribe once they’ve been to Bedlam? How do we help them so that they don’t feel as if they’re encased in glass, pinned to the walls as specimens in some museum-house of culture? It’s a difficult question to answer. I have trouble answering it myself.”

One of the ways Brian Turner has responded to his history, as a soldier at the battlefront who returns home, has been to explore in his poems various experiences encountered in a war zone and to examine the enduring emotions evoked by them. Turner’s first book, Here, Bullet (Alice James Books, 2005), was the winner of the Beatrice Hawley Book Award, the Poets’ Prize, the Northern California Book Award in Poetry, and other honors. In my review of Here, Bullet posted in January of 2007 to “One Poet’s Notes,” I remarked: “Admirably, Turner tries to offer different versions and to identify differing visions of the events related throughout the book by learning various aspects of local language, customs, and religious beliefs. The speaker in these poems desires a way to understand and empathize with those whose country is caught in the crossfire of conflict.”

I am pleased to report Brian Turner is among the poets contributing work for the new issue (Fall/Winter 2009-2010) of Valparaiso Poetry Review, celebrating its tenth anniversary, with two of his poems: “Molotov Cocktails” and “The Battle of Fucine Lake, AD 52.” Readers are also urged to visit another article at “One Poet’s Notes,” “Veteran’s Day: Brain Turner’s ‘Here, Bullet,’” to view a video of Turner performing his poetry.