Books by Brian Turner
Here, Bullet
by Brian Turner
A first-person account of the Iraq War by a solider-poet, winner of the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award.
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 Alice James’ own Doug Anderson (The Moon Reflected Fire), Iraqi war veteran Brian Turner writes power-fully affecting poetry of witness, exceptional for its beauty, honesty, and skill. Based on Turner’s yearlong 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.
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$15.95
My Life as a Foreign Country: A Memoir
by Brian Turner
"Brilliant and beautiful. It surely ranks with the best war memoirs I’ve ever encountered." ―Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried
An award-winning poet and former infantry team leader in Iraq, Brian Turner combines his devastating recollections as “Sergeant Turner” with his visions of the experiences of generations of warriors in his family―and even those of the enemy―in a work of profound understanding and shocking beauty.
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My Life as a Foreign Country: A Memoir
by Brian Turner
A war memoir of unusual literary beauty and power from the acclaimed poet who wrote the poem “The Hurt Locker.” In 2003, Sergeant Brian Turner crossed the line of departure with a convoy of soldiers headed into the Iraqi desert.
Now he lies awake each night beside his sleeping wife, imagining himself as a drone aircraft, hovering over the terrains of Bosnia and Vietnam, Iraq and Northern Ireland, the killing fields of Cambodia and the death camps of Europe.
In this breathtaking memoir, award-winning poet Brian Turner retraces his war experience―pre-deployment to combat zone, homecoming to aftermath. Free of self-indulgence or self-glorification, his account combines recollection with the imagination's efforts to make reality comprehensible. Across time, he seeks parallels in the histories of others who have gone to war, especially his taciturn grandfather (World War II), father (Cold War), and uncle (Vietnam). Turner also offers something that is truly rare in a memoir of violent conflict―he sees through the eyes of the enemy, imagining his way into the experience of the "other." Through it all, he paints a devastating portrait of what it means to be a soldier and a human being.
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The Kiss: Intimacies from Writers
by Brian Turner
A deliciously diverse anthology of essays, stories, poems, and graphic memoirs, where writers explore the deeply human act of kissing.
From Sioux Falls to Khartoum, from Kyoto to Reykjavik; from the panchayat forests of India to the Giant’s Causeway on the coast of Northern Ireland; in taxis and at bus stops, in kitchens and sleigh beds, haystacks and airports around the globe―people are kissing one another. The sublime kiss. The ambiguous kiss. The devastating kiss. The kiss we can’t take back. The kiss we can never give. The kiss that changes a life. In this anthology, writers and thinkers share their thoughts on a specific kiss―the unexpected and unforgettable―in an attempt to bridge the gulf, to connect us to one another on a deeply human level, and to explore the messy and complicated intimacies that exist in our actual lives, as well as in the complicated landscape of the imagination.
Sparked and developed from a series curated for Guernica by editor Brian Turner, this is a book meant to be read from cover to cover, just as much as it’s meant to be dipped into―with each kiss pulling us closer to the moments in our lives that matter most.
"A kiss, you see, can carry not just a heart in it, but a soul." ―from Pico Iyer, "The Kiss at Dawn"
"There are countries in that kiss, years of experience, ghosts of past lovers and the tricks they taught you." ―from Siobhan Fallon, "The Ride"
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The Kiss: Intimacies from Writers
by Brian Turner
Kisses from Nick Flynn, Rebecca Makkai, Pico Iyer, Ilyse Kusnetz, Andre Dubus III, Christian Kiefer, Camille T. Dungy, Major Jackson, Bich Minh Nguyen, Terrance Hayes, Ada Limón, Honor Moore, Téa Obreht and Dan Sheehan, Kazim Ali, Beth Ann Fennelly, and others
In this wide-ranging collection of essays, stories, graphic memoir, and cross-genre work, writers explore the deeply human act of kissing, and share their thoughts on a specific kiss―the unexpected and unforgettable, the sublime and the ambiguous, the devastating and the regenerative. Selections from beloved authors “tantalize with such grace that they linger sweetly in your mind for days” (New York Times Book Review), as they explore the messy and complicated intimacies that exist in our actual lives, as well as in the complicated landscape of the imagination.
This is a book meant to be read from cover to cover, just as much as it’s meant to be dipped into―with each kiss pulling us closer to the moments in our lives that matter most.
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$15.95
The Strangest of Theatres: Poets Writing Across Borders
by Brian Turner, Susan Rich, Jared Hawkley
The Strangest of Theatres explores how poets who are willing to venture beyond our borders can serve as envoys to the wider world and revitalize American poetry in the process. What are they looking for when they leave? What do they find? How does their experience shape them, and what is revealed when they sit down at their desks and take up the pen?
Original and reprinted essays by contemporary poets who have spent time abroad address questions of estrangement, identity, and home. These reflections represent a diverse atlas of experience from authors such as Kazim Ali, Elizabeth Bishop, Naomi Shihab Nye, Nick Flynn, Yusef Komunyakaa, Claudia Rankine, Alissa Valles, and many others.
Following these literary reflections is a roundtable conversation among fourteen poets as well as a section that provides practical re-sources for finding work abroad, applying for fellowships and residencies, funding a trip, obtaining proper travel documents, and attending to other cultural considerations. This inspiring, useful book addresses concerns relevant to any American writer preparing to go abroad, already traveling, just returning, or simply dreaming of the faraway.
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The Wild Delight of Wild Things
by Brian Turner
Although grief is at the forefront of these poems, The Wild Delight of Wild Things is a simple love letter to Turner's late wife, poet Ilyse Kusnetz (1966-2016).
The poems are also a love letter to our planet during the ongoing sixth mass extinction. Intertwining this immense grief, Turner explores the hybrid borderlands of genre, and the meditations on love and loss blur the boundaries between poetry and lyric prose. In Italian, the word "stanza" is rooted in the word "room."
And so, stanza by stanza, room by room, page by page, we draft ourselves forward into the imagination, our arms filled with all that we can carry from the days gone by. This is the art of survival. Profound grief teaches us how to dwell in the house of memory―that vibrant temporal landscape of the past―where we might live with the dead we love once more.
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$17.95
The Goodbye World Poem
by Brian Turner
While Turner (author of Here, Bullet) grieves the loss of his wife to cancer, The Goodbye World Poem is a series of poetic meditations that sit quietly in the silent “afterward” of someone’s death. Losing his wife, his father, and his best friend in quick succession, Turner explores those relationships through the complicated lenses of moments in time, weaving in and out of memory to explore the disparate history that fuses together to form ones psyche. Throughout the collection, a prevailing motion recurs: that of submersion, sinking, plunging into the deep―whether it be the ocean or the subconscious. In other words, this book is a kind of poetic biography, a journey of the self that ultimately pours everything that’s happened in a life―all of the love and all of the loss―into the moment of death itself. The poems are meant to be celebratory and sublime in their comprehension of what happens to our memories when we die. And, if the reader is inclined―the reader becomes the vessel who holds all of this in their own imagination, carrying Turner and his memories forward into their own lives in a small way.
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$17.95
The Dead Peasant's Handbook
by Brian Turner
Following the loose series of Turner’s other recent 2023 publications, The Wild Delight of Wild Things and The Goodbye World Poem, this third book in this “collection” serves as a poetic guide to help us navigate the world we live in. The Dead Peasant’s Handbook begins with the difficulty and hardship of living in the world after losing a loved one before allowing oneself to gravitate again towards delight and wonder. With deep dives into history, the poems traverse the wild terrain of our lives, and it remains ever-constant to the theme at the core of all three recent books―that of love and loss. The poems take their structure from guidebooks, featuring subject areas connected to the general experience of being human: war and conflict, dreams, love and loss, and survival. The book itself takes its title from an insurance industry policy (“Dead Peasants”) in which companies can take out insurance on their workforce in case of loss or death―sometimes without employees knowing. And so, this book is also a commentary on the people and moments that are too often elided over and given the vault of silence, and maybe lost to time.
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$17.95
Day of the Dead 2017 Wall Calendar: Sugar Skulls (English and Spanish Edition)
by Amber Lotus Publishing, Brian Turner, Andi Bird, Methane Studios, Straw Castle
Day of the Dead sugar skulls appear on everything from apparel to jewelry and tattoos. The Day of the Dead: Sugar Skulls wall calendar features fantastic Día de los Muertos pop culture icons in stunning paintings, vector art, and screen-printed posters. This is a vibrant tribute to life and a living Mexican folk tradition. A year of stunning sugar skull artwork on your wall. Frameable artbook-quality printing. The perfect gift for the Day of the Dead sugar skull art enthusiast. Features intricate works of art by accomplished artists such as Methane Studios, Straw Castle, Brian Turner, and Andi Bird. Printed on FSC® Certified Mixed Source Paper with soy-based inks. Published by Amber Lotus, an independent carbon-negative US company that has planted more than half a million trees since 2008. This calendar features US and Canadian legal holidays, phases of the moon, and important observances of the world's major religions.
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