Sherry Chandler » Warrior Poets
Warrior Poets
My “Day in History” sidebar tells me it was two years ago today that I last heard from Kelly Vinal.
I can only hope that he got bored with me and moved on. He was, at that time, a believer in the cause in Iraq as I have never been. Wherever he is, I wish him well. And I would be most glad to hear from him or to hear news of him.
On the recommendation of a friend, I have been reading Brian Turner’s Here, Bullet (Alice James, 2005). Turner spent a year in Iraq with the infantry. Sample poems here.
I’m tempted to call him the Wilfred Owen of this war, but he is not that really. A culture can only have one Wilfred Owen experience, a zero-at-the-bone moment when poetry begins to reflect not the glories, but the horrors of war.
Though I am well aware that Homer did not flinch from the horrors and that the heroes of The Iliad are not all that glorious.
Turner seems to me a sadder, less angry poet than Owen. He had, perhaps, less innocence to lose. He is also fighting an enemy who is not a mirror image of himself. The poems in Here, Bullet try to show us many sides: the soldiers, the insurgents, the civilians.
These excellent poems give much clearer “news” of the war than that given by CNN et al. It should be required reading for every American citizen.
Postscript. “Kindness,” the Naomi Shahib Nye poem on The Writer’s Almanac today deserves special attention:
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,…
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4 Comments
1. Rosalie replies at 23rd July 2007, 3:54 pm :
Sherry, we must be on the same wavelength or something. I was reading Naomi Shihab Nye’s Word Within the Word yesterday. A favorite book by a favorite poet. I love her conversational style. In fact, that’s why I was reading her work — in preparation for a poem that I’m writing that I want to be in that style. — Rosalie
2. sherry replies at 23rd July 2007, 5:13 pm :
Nye will be the keynote speaker at the WWC this fall, Rosalie, and she will do a master class. Much excitement locally.
3. Kelly Vinal replies at 24th July 2007, 5:31 pm :
Hi Sherry,
No… I am stull here, albeit as a lurker… I returned from Iraq after our last encounter, moved on to Bagram, Afghanistan, and now I am preparing to return to Iraq again! It is nice to see you are still active, vibrant, and spicy as ever! Keep it up! I have enclosed “Ash and Dream” from my next collection, for your amusement.
Warmest Regards
CW4 Kelly Vinal
US Army
Ash and Dream
Then this present time, how lost
The inexplicable and curio
Rare as true absolution
And you depart, as such
A rip of gilded robes
That I clutch the threads
A sunrise, a morning dew
A dreamed memory of
Creation gazing back
That might be life
So it enters my lungs
But I taste nothing
A stained cup, a tea steeping
A ghost of vapor summoning
Draws me close
Threads in my fist
Love for something within
But fading in sleepy discourse
This is now, and now gone
No lore, no Phoenix to rise
But her gazes in retreat
2007-KAV
4. sherry replies at 25th July 2007, 6:08 am :
Kelly! Hooray! And still writing poetry. There’s a poem folks, so be sure to read Kelly’s comments. There’s also the story, in a few short lines, of a remarkable two years. You are held dear, Kelly, no matter how we may disagree about politics.
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