Perspectives through Poetry

Brian Turner organized Here, Bullet  into four separate sections. Each section emphasizes an aspect of war and humanity, which Turner’s poem “2000 lbs.” demonstrates. The book as a whole carries Brian Turner’s perspective and experience with the Iraq war. 

Part one introduces the conflict, the Iraq war, the location, Iraq, and the people involved, the soldiers and Iraqi people. His poetry provides the imagery for an understanding of the context of the book. “Hwy 1” mentions locations such as: Najaf, Kirkuk, Mosul, Kanni al Saad, and the Euphrates. Upon seeing these names, the reader envisions the Middle East, specifically Iraq. In “The Al Harishma Weapons Market,” Akbar “wraps an AK-47 in cloth” in the presence of his child. For him, weapons sales are the means by which he can put food on his table.  The Americans are portrayed in “The Baghdad Zoo” as “gunner[s]” hunting “Iraqi northern brown bear[s].” The Iraqi people and the American soldiers are contrasted, exposing different viewpoints that individuals in the war hold. “The Hurt Locker” describes the land as having “Nothing but hurt left here. / Nothing but bullets and pain.” Turner captured the perspective of both the conscientious soldier and innocent civilian with that poem. The namesake of the book, “Here, Bullet,” offers an individual’s “bone and gristle and flesh” to a bullet. 

In part two, Turner explores how the Iraq war affected people. The personal depth in which Turner writes is even further demonstrated by the locations given at the tops of many poems. The reader sees these and realizes that Turner wrote from real experience at a real place. A man featured in “Kirkuk Oilfield, 1927” says “We live on the roof of Hell,” referring to living on the land ruled by the oil industry. Ahmed listens to this man tell him that “he’s seen the black river / wash through the flood of oil as if the drillers had struck a vein / deep in the skull of God.” The individuality of Turner’s poems makes the descriptive imagery that he uses more emotive. “Autopsy” exemplifies the individuality that Turner uses throughout this section of the book. The mortician Sergeant Garza, from Missouri, performs an autopsy on a man whose first kiss is mentioned. 

Turner also explores the remorse of the individual and the physical effects of war in part two. The persona in “For Vultures: a Dystopia” offers his “remorse of flesh” to the birds circling above. He hopes that his “gift of heat and steam” would suffice to exonerate for “every plume / of smoke, every fallen soldier, / [and] every woman’s / for the ones they love.” “Dreams from the Malaria Pills (Barefoot) and (Bosch)” are two poems in this section which demonstrate the physical effects of war to the reader. The persona in “Barefoot” coughs up “shrapnel, jagged and rough,” and in “Bosch” he feels as if he has experienced the open flames of a flamethrower. 

Turner then contrasts humanity with ancient humanity in part three. The first poem in this section, “Alhazen of Barsa,” juxtaposes the ancient humanity of the early first millennium with modern humanity. The old world did not question “whether light travels in a straight line, / or what governs the laws of refraction,” but the new world does. Turner says that he would “rather ask about the light within us,” like the old world. A soldier in “Observation Post #798” looks through his binoculars during a time of relative calm and sees a woman smoking a cigarrette and waving her hair in the air. Seeing this sparks his memory of being home with his own wife, some “7,600 miles / away.”

Section four reflects on the lessons that society has not learned.  “Mihrab” explores the imagery associated with the Garden of Eden. The story of the Garden of Eden was the first time that man had made a moral mistake. Turner has this at the beginning of this section to introduce the concept of missed lessons. Turner’s poem “Gilgamesh, in Fossil Relief” says: “History is a cloud mirror made of dirt / and bone and ruin. And Love? Loss?” Then, at the end of the poem, Turner warns that “each age must learn.” Turner’s mentioning of Biblical locations brings to mind the morality which seems to be absent from Iraq.

The overall structure of the book flows from an identification of where the conflict is, and who the people are, to how it affects these people, as well as focusing on humanity, and ends with missed lessons. 

The poem “2000 Lbs.” is the longest in the book, and it focuses on one event, a car bombing. However, it shows the event through the perspective of seven people in eight stanzas, thus perfectly exemplifying the structure of the book as a whole. A close reading of the poem will give readers a better understanding of one even through the perspective of seven people.

The first stanza introduces the man who detonates the explosives. His “thumb [is] trembling over the button,” and his “adrenaline has pushed [the radio soundtrack] into silence, replacing it with a heartbeat.” The stanza is only six lines long, and the lines themselves are shorter than most throughout the rest of the poem. This fast piece of the poem may signify the subjects of discomfort and nervousness. 

The second stanza focuses on an individual named Sefwan, who “lights a Miami, [and] draws in the smoke” as he waits in his taxi. While waiting, he remembers “lifting / pitchforks of grain high in the air,” which reminds him of his love of many decades ago, Shatha. During these memories, shrapnel “traveling at the speed of sound to open him up / in blood and shock,” kills Sefwan. Sefwan died remembering his love. Such a violent act juxtaposed to a warm, homey and loving memory make the perspective of Sefwan much more emotive. 

Sergeant Ledouix of the National Guard is the focus of the third stanza. The reader joins his story right after the explosion. His eardrums have ruptured and shrapnel punctured his ribcage, hastily draining his blood. He knows that he will die within a few minutes, which he does. However, he “finds himself surrounded by a strange / beauty, the shine of light on the broken, / a woman’s hand touching his face.” This and the later use of wedding ring imagery allude to his late wife. Leodouix’s perspective is that of a man who has committed violence in his life, but is finally laid to peaceful rest at the hands of an explosion. One might guess that a man who led men to kill other men deserved a death of pain and gore, but Turner would have it otherwise; Turner has this man die in the memory of his wife, much like Sefwan dies in the second stanza. Turner shows that all people die equally. Some may see this as an injustice, but in reality it is an equalizer, as all men pass on. 

The fourth stanza is from the perspective of Rasheed, a man who was riding his bike near a shop when the blast occurred and his observation of manikins and the relative humanity to which he compared it. He survived uninjured, but he witnessed the “blast tearing into manikins,” who appeared as husband and wife who could never touch each other. This outsider viewpoint may stand for the bystanders who watch conflict but do not do anything about it. 

The fifth stanza focuses on another military man, Leutinant Jackson, who embodies the innocent man who does violent acts for some unknown reason. Jackson was blowing bubbles outside of a Humvee window when the bomb blew, causing him to lose both of his hands. He then “blacks out / from blood loss and shock, with no one there to bandage / the wounds that would carry him home.” Jackson may symbolize the gentle man who commits acts of violence for some deeper reason. 

The sixth stanza was the most emotive of the poem; it tells of old woman who “cradles her grandson, / whispering, rocking him on her knees.” The poem states that if the lady was asked forty years ago if she could see her self in this current position she would say: “To have your heart broken one last time / before dying, to kiss a child given sight / of a life he could never live? It’s impossible, / this isn’t the way we die.” This is the embodiment of the destruction of the innocent. The old lady was innocent, but the young child was beyond third party innocent, he held the innocent of one who does not know what evil is. 

The seventh stanza focuses back on the detonator. However, instead of focusing on his personal traits or how he is in the moment, it focuses on his overwhelming presence in the scene. It says that “he is everywhere”, his body exploded from the epicenter. The man is omniscient, touching all the people in the vicinity of the explosion. The detonator’s act touches more than those in the circle. It touches the lives of those connected to the people who were present in the explosion. This represents the vast effects that an act of violence can have on the world. 

The last stanza reflects on the scene as a whole. A telephone line is broken and swings back and forth “crackling” with active electricity. The people “wander confused amongst one another.” The people though, are learning each others’ names and consoling each other. This last stanza represents hope. In the face of violence, humanity can persist and endure until the violence is over and it can help rebuild. 

This poem functions much like the book as a whole. It uses perspective to create a better understanding of an event. In this poem’s case, a car bomb is extrapolated, but in the case of the book as a whole, the Iraq war is explored.