tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59910244434880826372024-03-05T03:47:39.731-06:00Red Bull RisingTo explain in plain language the roles, responsibilities, and routines of the U.S. citizen-soldier; and to illuminate ways in which citizen-soldiers, past and present, can be remembered, supported, and celebrated.Administratorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12357128909045161891noreply@blogger.comBlogger873125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-59259315139246919032023-12-01T05:00:00.002-06:002023-12-01T09:09:44.003-06:00Great Books for Military Service Members, Veterans, and Family!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNSz-NkAl0-05Na93ZmVhJ_CUcDvL12aVdBWBXiIsPDx2-IdnJLJLOfQ1JzEBIFUFHtCWNwgeCz1wWYLAoOhbSTImqlzM9EtlFVim4OjhCKh8MdS3Mbx1najuxKYwzUDeDLmyvrUBp8SySJXE_SQU1aa4VwHJTZ1gk2N7H9flVS_Pp7ZfqQXBXpQSbDY90/s3200/THINGS-WE-CARRY-STILL%20Inspiring%20Insights%20for%20Twitter%20-%20low-rez.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2400" data-original-width="3200" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNSz-NkAl0-05Na93ZmVhJ_CUcDvL12aVdBWBXiIsPDx2-IdnJLJLOfQ1JzEBIFUFHtCWNwgeCz1wWYLAoOhbSTImqlzM9EtlFVim4OjhCKh8MdS3Mbx1najuxKYwzUDeDLmyvrUBp8SySJXE_SQU1aa4VwHJTZ1gk2N7H9flVS_Pp7ZfqQXBXpQSbDY90/w640-h480/THINGS-WE-CARRY-STILL%20Inspiring%20Insights%20for%20Twitter%20-%20low-rez.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Three Middle West Press titles now make up something of <b>a non-fiction trilogy for writers and readers of military themes</b> and topics. As such, they make <b>great seasonal and professional gifts</b> for past- and present military service members, veterans, and family.<p></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Writes Editor-Publisher Randy Brown: “One principle that drives our military-themed work at Middle West Press, is that not all veterans are American Snipers and Navy SEALs; be proud of who you were, what you did as a job and what you tried to do in your country's name, and who you are now.<span style="white-space: pre;">”</span></span></p><p></p><ul><li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://amzn.to/3JCYoJg" style="cursor: pointer; font-variation-settings: var(--global-fontVariationSettings-fontWidth-regular),var(--global-fontVariationSettings-fontWeight-bold); font-weight: var(--global-fontWeights-body-default) !important; white-space-collapse: preserve-breaks;"><em><strong style="font-variation-settings: var(--global-fontVariationSettings-fontWidth-regular),var(--global-fontVariationSettings-fontWeight-bold);">Things We Carry Still: Poems & Micro-Stories about Military Gear</strong></em></a><span style="background-color: white; white-space-collapse: preserve-breaks;"> playfully explores military life around a single idea—“show and tell” from our closets and footlockers—while offering new inspirations for future writing!</span></span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://amzn.to/2OZktFN" style="cursor: pointer; font-variation-settings: var(--global-fontVariationSettings-fontWidth-regular),var(--global-fontVariationSettings-fontWeight-bold); font-weight: var(--global-fontWeights-body-default) !important;"><em><strong style="font-variation-settings: var(--global-fontVariationSettings-fontWidth-regular),var(--global-fontVariationSettings-fontWeight-bold);">Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War</strong></em></a> helps define a genre/practice of "Military Writing" as a big tent—one that includes veterans, service members, civilians, novelists, poets, scholars, science-fiction writers, etc.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://amzn.to/2IrfNYE" style="cursor: pointer; font-variation-settings: var(--global-fontVariationSettings-fontWidth-regular),var(--global-fontVariationSettings-fontWeight-bold); font-weight: var(--global-fontWeights-body-default) !important;"><em><strong style="font-variation-settings: var(--global-fontVariationSettings-fontWidth-regular),var(--global-fontVariationSettings-fontWeight-bold);">Our Best War Stories: Prize-winning Poetry & Prose from the Col . Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards</strong></em></a> showcases some of the very best of military writing, as exemplified by the Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards. These awards, administered annually by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/lineofadvance?__cft__[0]=AZUy0r8fbbEhblJVR9I4b2ZhkaMpHEXfwRFQC6pwfXKcm-8s6u6kS21N3i9GoMXDBwg0L1lJRp5NC2sCRnj8TQTvSBzlVtFFbcTm5JdJkrHYmHMFsEvropAcYQuEEk-G5sTrQnshygainNKwzBaNBcgK6osnPDdNSX-zhflYSPRvwihSN8u6Q4_XlwiDpfmvmzWVv9ucaGr3zx4zKl41sI1w&__tn__=-]K-R" style="cursor: pointer; font-variation-settings: var(--global-fontVariationSettings-fontWidth-regular),var(--global-fontVariationSettings-fontWeight-bold); font-weight: var(--global-fontWeights-body-default) !important;">Line of Advance</a> journal, are one of <a href="http://www.aimingcircle.com/">The Aiming Circle’s</a> highest-recommended venues for military writing.</span></li></ul><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Middle West Press LLC is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, journalism, and poetry. As an independent micro-press, we publish one to four titles annually. Our projects are often inspired by the people, places, and history of the American Midwest.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our titles are available for purchase via select museum gift shops and independent booksellers, as well as leading on-line bookstores. Library and bookseller rates available.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Shop all our titles on Amazon here, in both print and Kindle e-book editions: <a href="http://amzn.to/3zvWGmV" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">amzn.to/3zvWGmV</a></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white;" trbidi="on"><i>(Disclosure: Middle West Press LLC is an Amazon sales affiliate. As such, it earns a small commission from qualifying purchases using the above links.)</i></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-36606972569228309322023-02-08T08:19:00.002-06:002023-02-08T08:41:49.833-06:00New on Kindle: Soldier-Poet Targets Moral Puzzles through Lens of TV Show<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwE4VO2AICWvqQ_jmrsPhlO7IgfsTNRG_eOZPfQ4U5Z6pufork8WNRF6vLhkRMRVcMDpMFBCwhfIc_glKOZEJ-OfFOO_tyYA3NbNuz5GXWOP81ayPmhZ76_n2ZD0OFWw6IB2QSB7X2AYQKbKMCP9XGtRmh6NoAqx70UCL4PnuODLBAMw9RX7lGbwjThQ/s2560/Twelve-OClock-Haibun-Kindle.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="1707" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwE4VO2AICWvqQ_jmrsPhlO7IgfsTNRG_eOZPfQ4U5Z6pufork8WNRF6vLhkRMRVcMDpMFBCwhfIc_glKOZEJ-OfFOO_tyYA3NbNuz5GXWOP81ayPmhZ76_n2ZD0OFWw6IB2QSB7X2AYQKbKMCP9XGtRmh6NoAqx70UCL4PnuODLBAMw9RX7lGbwjThQ/w426-h640/Twelve-OClock-Haibun-Kindle.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br />In the new Kindle e-chapbook <i style="text-indent: 28.8px;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3DSl3OW"><b>Twelve O’Clock Haibun: Parables & Poems from a Classic TV Show</b></a></i><span style="text-indent: 28.8px;">, humor-loving s</span><span style="text-indent: 28.8px;">oldier-poet (and former “Army lessons-learned analyst”) <a href="http://amzn.to/3CqzpDk">Randy Brown</a> invites readers to view the 1964-1965 first season of the “12 O’Clock High” as <b>a series of moral dilemmas and puzzles.</b></span><p></p><p></p><p>The TV series is <a href="https://amzn.to/3DRfgcu"><b>now viewable on Amazon Prime Video</b></a>, as well as Internet platforms.</p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-indent: 28.8px;">In this <b>standalone spin-off</b> to the author’s ground-breaking 2022 lyrical meta-essay </span><i style="text-indent: 28.8px;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3BMDa87"><b>Twelve O’Clock Haiku: Leadership Lessons from Old War Movies & New Poems</b></a></i><span style="text-indent: 28.8px;">, readers can now <b>match wits and wisdom with the charismatic and brooding Brig. Gen. Frank Savage </b>(Robert Lansing), commander of the fictional 918th Bomb Group, as he and his heroic air crews stoically navigate tests of endurance, morality, courage, and loss.</span></span></p><p><span style="text-indent: 28.8px;"><b>A haibun is a Japanese form, comprised of a short prose narrative followed by a haiku.</b> In haibun, the prose and poetry elements traditionally do not address each other directly, but they do relate thematically. Ideally, the impressions left after reading a haibun should be greater than the sum of its two parts.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-indent: 28.8px;">The </span><i style="text-indent: 28.8px;">Twelve O’Clock Haibun</i><span style="text-indent: 28.8px;"> project comprises <b>brief, spoiler-free summaries of all 32 episodes of the TV show’s first season</b>, plus one additional “final” episode in order to complete a narrative arc. For each, a prose section first describes an episode’s situational frame, without offering resolutions. A companion haiku then illuminates a moral question or dilemma suggested by the story. Readers are left to reflect on the implications of each situation.<b> As in war, there are no easy answers.</b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; text-align: justify;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #4e4e4e; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In addition to other accolades, Brown is a three-time poetry finalist in the <a href="http://amzn.to/2Ijev1E" style="background: transparent; color: #d90c0c; text-decoration-line: none;">Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards</a>, administered annually by the Chicago-based literary journal <i>Line of Advance</i>. His 2015 collection, <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2n7zOIg" style="background: transparent; color: #d90c0c; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire</b></a></i>, was awarded a gold medal distinction from the Military Writers Society of America. His chapbook <i><b><a href="http://amzn.to/3bzW0Bu" style="background: transparent; color: #d90c0c; text-decoration-line: none;">So Frag & So Bold: Short Poems, Aphorisms & Other Wartime Fun</a></b></i> was published in 2021.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He is the co-editor of two non-fiction books: <i><b><a href="http://amzn.to/2fkWKMf" style="background: transparent; color: #d90c0c; text-decoration-line: none;">Reporting for Duty: Citizen-Soldier Journalism from the Afghan Surge, 2010-2011</a></b></i>, published in 2015; and <b><i><a href="http://amzn.to/2OZktFN" style="background: transparent; color: #d90c0c; text-decoration-line: none;">Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War,</a></i></b> published in 2019.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As “Charlie Sherpa,” he blogs about modern war poetry at <a href="http://www.fobhaiku.com/" style="background: transparent; color: #d90c0c; text-decoration-line: none;">www.fobhaiku.com</a>, and about writing on military themes at <a href="http://www.aimingcircle.org/" style="background: transparent; color: #d90c0c; text-decoration-line: none;">www.aimingcircle.org</a>.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><blockquote style="color: black; font-stretch: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><i><b>TWELVE O’CLOCK HAIBUN: Parables & Poems from a Classic TV Show</b> (Middle West Press LLC) is available as a <a href="https://amzn.to/3BMDa87" style="background: transparent; color: #d90c0c; text-decoration-line: none;">$2.99 Kindle e-book edition</a> exclusively via Amazon.</i></blockquote></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.middlewestpress.com/" style="background: transparent; color: #d90c0c; text-decoration-line: none;">Middle West Press LLC</a> is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, journalism, and poetry. As an independent micro-press, we publish one to four titles annually. Our projects are often inspired by the people, places, and history of the American Midwest.</span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-46017874075153529142022-09-18T08:00:00.007-05:002022-09-19T09:53:49.859-05:00Through Classic WW2 Movie, Humorist-Poet Explores Go-to-War Ethics<p><span style="text-align: justify;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWHwRnu7LbYKzswPgJCy6SNayL4F55Pt0v9i4QniJ8fh_UYmi6X_qLAym6Xwa3kKS_gnJ6vTAjpI6hkhQCS2oXzR8pSMD9lDdbHihPL0kuVbKhJv0sgfw9RIC7FzbK5LC3-1GT6JsXYEs8N0p9_pFAJGjeHBuYn9iE-oqLDuocTAxoeu_M88hlj1Nf-w/s2704/TOCH%20illustrator%20upload%2028JUL22%20copy%20bowker%20low.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2704" data-original-width="1799" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWHwRnu7LbYKzswPgJCy6SNayL4F55Pt0v9i4QniJ8fh_UYmi6X_qLAym6Xwa3kKS_gnJ6vTAjpI6hkhQCS2oXzR8pSMD9lDdbHihPL0kuVbKhJv0sgfw9RIC7FzbK5LC3-1GT6JsXYEs8N0p9_pFAJGjeHBuYn9iE-oqLDuocTAxoeu_M88hlj1Nf-w/w266-h400/TOCH%20illustrator%20upload%2028JUL22%20copy%20bowker%20low.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><br />In a cheeky critique of the classic American air power narrative<span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_O%27Clock_High" style="text-align: justify;">“Twelve O’Clock High,”</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><b style="text-align: justify;">award-winning soldier-poet, essayist, and humorist <a href="http://amzn.to/3CqzpDk">Randy Brown</a></b><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">explores what it means to be a leader or follower at war—morally, physically, and psychologically. The book is</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><b style="text-align: justify;">packed full of insights into military life</b><span style="text-align: justify;">, as viewed through the lenses of</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><b style="text-align: justify;">war movies, history, and the author’s experiences as a one-time U.S. Army-trained “lessons-learned analyst.” </b><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">“I started out to write 12 haiku poems about a favorite old war movie,” says the author, “but my ‘whimsical experiment in minimalist war poetry’ mutated into a ‘maximum effort’ mix of memory, media, and military culture!” <b><a href="https://amzn.to/3BMDa87"><i>TWELVE O’CLOCK HAIKU: Leadership Lessons from Old War Movies & New Poems</i></a></b> now comprises poems both old and new, a lyric essay about the film, and a list of resources for enthusiasts of World War II bomber poetry, history, and movies.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">Brown first encountered the 1949 movie when on temporary duty as a U.S. Army citizen-soldier. Whether as a novel, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_O%27Clock_High">film</a>, or late-1960s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_O%27Clock_High_(TV_series)">television series</a>, the “Twelve O’Clock High” franchise continues to be a touchstone in 21st century <b>Professional Military Education (PME) </b>and<b> business-class discussions</b> about <b>transformative leadership, ethics, organizational learning, and management techniques.</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">In addition to other accolades, Brown is a three-time poetry finalist in the <a href="http://amzn.to/2Ijev1E">Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards</a>, administered annually by the Chicago-based literary journal <i>Line of Advance</i>. His 2015 collection, <i><a href="http://amzn.to/2n7zOIg"><b>Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire</b></a></i>, was awarded a gold medal distinction from the Military Writers Society of America. His chapbook <i><b><a href="http://amzn.to/3bzW0Bu">So Frag & So Bold: Short Poems, Aphorisms & Other Wartime Fun</a></b></i> was published in 2021.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">He is the co-editor of two non-fiction books: <i><b><a href="http://amzn.to/2fkWKMf">Reporting for Duty: Citizen-Soldier Journalism from the Afghan Surge, 2010-2011</a></b></i>, published in 2015; and <b><i><a href="http://amzn.to/2OZktFN">Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War,</a></i></b> published in 2019.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">As “Charlie Sherpa,” he blogs about modern war poetry at <a href="http://www.fobhaiku.com">www.fobhaiku.com</a>, and about writing on military themes at <a href="http://www.aimingcircle.org">www.aimingcircle.org</a>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">Starting September 18, 2022 (the 75th birthday of the U.S. Air Force !!!):</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><blockquote><i><b>TWELVE O’CLOCK HAIKU: Life-Lessons in Leadership from War Poems & Films</b> (116 pages, Middle West Press LLC) is available in a <a href="https://amzn.to/3ShSDCr">$14.99 trade paperback edition</a> through Amazon and other booksellers, as well as a <a href="https://amzn.to/3BMDa87">$9.99 Kindle e-book edition</a> exclusively via Amazon.</i></blockquote></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.middlewestpress.com/">Middle West Press LLC</a> is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, journalism, and poetry. As an independent micro-press, we publish one to four titles annually. Our projects are often inspired by the people, places, and history of the American Midwest.</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-28983486796751249142021-10-27T05:00:00.004-05:002021-10-27T05:00:00.208-05:00Former 'Red Bull' Citizen-Soldier Writes New Poetry Chapbook<p><br />“Every poet,” warns journalist and poet <a href="https://amzn.to/3Cgpgco">Randy Brown</a>, “has a heart filled / with shrapnel.”</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioqZCvfm-LRJAFXrjm7OT4WutkRkchlPrvebXH_dC1qYXTww3ymc4g2U1I00e37A-2xr_ZcosGoA7ehj-Qdr_UCgfHTHhxBCAmA29KiKhmLhmUq8HqgqRHYciH4zzyvV3wNScNODJqzcXr/s1650/FRAG+full+cover+FINAL+27SEPT21+front+only+-+cropped.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1650" data-original-width="1077" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioqZCvfm-LRJAFXrjm7OT4WutkRkchlPrvebXH_dC1qYXTww3ymc4g2U1I00e37A-2xr_ZcosGoA7ehj-Qdr_UCgfHTHhxBCAmA29KiKhmLhmUq8HqgqRHYciH4zzyvV3wNScNODJqzcXr/w261-h400/FRAG+full+cover+FINAL+27SEPT21+front+only+-+cropped.jpg" width="261" /></a></div>In his new chapbook <b><i><a href="https://amzn.to/3nsBwQL">SO FRAG & SO BOLD</a></i></b>, the former U.S. Army “brigade staff jester” takes aim at endless wars, parent traps, social media, and stodgy religious beliefs. It’s an iconoclastic cluster-munition that’s bursting with more hundreds of haiku, aphorisms, philosophical puzzles, and other experiments in pithy and pulpy poetry.<p></p><p>Brown’s careful constructions of line-breaks and language are intended to variously provoke chuckles, empathy, and thought. “Any poem is a device,” he writes, “improvised to explode with meaning [...] ignited by a trigger / word.”</p><p>In addition to other accolades, Brown is a three-time poetry finalist in the <a href="https://www.lineofadvance.org/colonel-darren-l-wright-contest">Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards</a>, administered annually by the Chicago-based literary journal <i><a href="https://www.lineofadvance.org/about">Line of Advance</a></i>. His debut collection, <b><i><a href="http://amzn.to/2n7zOIg">Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire</a></i></b>, was awarded a 2016 Gold Medal distinction from the Military Writers Society of America (MWSA).</p><p>In May-June 2011, Brown embedded as a civilian journalist with the Iowa Army National Guard’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry “Red Bull” Division. He subsequently collated and helped publish <i><b><a href="http://amzn.to/2fkWKMf">Reporting for Duty: Citizen-Soldier Journalism from the Afghan Surge</a></b></i><a href="http://amzn.to/2fkWKMf" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">, 2010-2011</a><b style="font-style: italic;">, </b>an unabridged 668-page chronicle of that deployment. (Click <a href="https://youtu.be/UKU88jK4WIM">here</a> for short promotional video of the book.)</p><p>His poetry and non-fiction have appeared widely in print and on-line. As “Charlie Sherpa,” he blogs about modern war poetry at <a href="http://www.fobhaiku.com">www.fobhaiku.com</a>, and about writing on military themes at <a href="http://www.aimingcircle.org">www.aimingcircle.org</a>.</p><p>Starting Nov. 1, 2021:</p><p></p><blockquote><b><i>SO FRAG & SO BOLD: Short Poems, Aphorisms & Other Wartime Fun</i></b> (84 pages, Middle West Press LLC) is available in a $9.99 trade paperback edition through Amazon and other booksellers, as well as a <a href="https://amzn.to/3nsBwQL">$2.99 Kindle e-book edition</a> exclusively via Amazon.</blockquote><p></p><p>Middle West Press LLC (<a href="http://www.middlewestpress.com">www.middlewestpress.com</a>) is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, journalism, and poetry. As an independent micro-press, we publish one to four titles annually. Our projects are often inspired by the people, places, and history of the American Midwest.</p><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-46150601033559965792021-04-02T05:00:00.006-05:002021-04-02T10:10:41.691-05:00Poetry, War, and the Places They Meet<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicUMAgfRDryB4haAGuiclhMWUlb6dNIjxIQpHUzamYhZ-y2BOJXjYzxdVX6-5qEcBwXCC1dZpoOn6xe2OL2rftPWB2h58C7ojAwyW_2Nq7bqOvjtPxt4JEHv9a4SoFHGzuSOgzSzTQm8Q-/s2048/473064.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicUMAgfRDryB4haAGuiclhMWUlb6dNIjxIQpHUzamYhZ-y2BOJXjYzxdVX6-5qEcBwXCC1dZpoOn6xe2OL2rftPWB2h58C7ojAwyW_2Nq7bqOvjtPxt4JEHv9a4SoFHGzuSOgzSzTQm8Q-/w640-h426/473064.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><i><p><i>Editor’s note: As previously noted on this blog, <a href="http://www.fobhaiku.com/2021/04/listen-up-maggots-its-national-poetry.html" style="text-indent: 36px;">April is National Poetry Month</a>! This essay originally appeared in the </i><a href="https://www.consequenceforum.org/nonfiction/non-fiction/poetry-war-and-the-places-they-meet">April 2020 on-line edition</a><i> of </i><a href="https://www.consequenceforum.org/masthead">Consequence Magazine</a><i> (recently relaunched as </i>Consequence Forum<i>).</i></p></i><p></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">No one gets into poetry for fame, glory, or money. As a “recovering journalist” (that’s a joke), I often quip that I’ve finally found a vocation that pays less than newspaper reporter: that of “citizen-soldier-poet.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">After years of writing and editing for newsstand consumer “how-to” magazines, concurrent with a 20-year career in the Iowa Army National Guard, I rediscovered poetry at a 2011 weekend writing workshop for military veterans. Hosted by a non-profit organization called </span><a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/2011/11/vets-write-their-back-home.html" style="font-family: inherit;">“Writing My Way Back Home,”</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> it was conducted on the campus of the University of Iowa, Iowa City.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;">After a 50-minute session reading soldierly poems—I don’t recall specific titles, so I’ll mention here Wilfred Owen’s 1917 </span><span class="s1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 36px;"><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decorum-est">“Dulce et Decorum Est”</a></span><span style="text-indent: 36px;"> and Rudyard Kipling’s 1890 </span><a href="http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/tommy.html" style="text-indent: 36px;"><span class="s1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">“Tommy”</span></a><span style="text-indent: 36px;"> as two titles I now use in my own work with veterans—we were prompted to write freely for 10 minutes: “Write about smells, sounds, and other sense-based memories you associate with your experiences with the military.”</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;">(Here’s a quick pro tip: Framing the prompt that way works for “civilian” audiences as well. After all, as the calendar flips toward nearly 20 years of war, every one of us—taxpayer, voter, citizen—has at least some connection with the culture and consequences of war.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="text-indent: 36px;"> )</span></span></p><p><span style="text-indent: 36px;">A few months earlier in 2011, I embedded as a freelance journalist with a brigade of Iowa citizen-soldiers deployed to Afghanistan. There, I’d again experienced the familiar tang of diesel-truck fumes, the staccato-chop of helicopters overhead, and the lulling background buzz of Uncle Sam’s electrical generators. But I had also encountered the frictions of changed contexts and perspectives.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: 36px;">As a member of the media, for example, I was prohibited from wearing a camouflage uniform or carrying a weapon—foreign concepts to any graduate of Army basic training. More than once during those weeks, I woke up in my bunk, sweating and panicked, hands flailing in the dark, trying to find my AWOL rifle. You think old habits die hard? Boot camp habits die harder. Call it the Ghost of Drill Sergeants Past.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: 36px;">So, at the workshop, I wrote my first war poem. It was about a hug.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: 36px;">The hug had bothered me for months. It was not a big event. It was not “news.” It was a small and unworthy thing—insufficient materiel, I thought, for even a blog post or postcard back home. And yet, it irritated my brain with the persistence of grit in an oyster. When I first arrived in Afghanistan, my former brigade commander—a man I respected and still feared, and who commanded the lives of 3,000 of my fellow Iowans—had greeted me not with a handshake, nor with a salute (I was now a civilian, after all), but with a hug.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: 36px;">I had spent months trying to figure out what that meant.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: 36px;">It took a poem for me to figure it out.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;">Author and Iraq War veteran Jason Poudrier (</span><i style="text-indent: 36px;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3drPT2Q">Red Fields</a></i><span style="text-indent: 36px;">, 2012) once told me about how he uses the practice of writing poetry to freeze moments, and to hold them up to inspection from different angles. Poetry, he said, allows for metaphor, uncertainty, contradiction, nuance. One thing can mean many things. Memories can be acknowledged—even honored—without having to be resolved. Then, after they are written down, they can be placed on a shelf—perhaps to be forgotten, perhaps to be reflected upon again later. Perhaps, even to be published, and shared with others.</span></span></p><p><span style="text-indent: 36px;">The words that resulted from 10 minutes of workshop-prompted reflection were later <a href="https://howardtayler.com/2015/04/at-long-last-an-unofficial-anecdotal-history-of-challenge-coins/">polished and published</a> as “Normally, a serious man”:</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Normally a serious man,</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">the brigade commander gives you a hug</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">and later a coin.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You keep turning up like a bad penny, he says.</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You have followed him</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">across deserts and oceans.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">First in uniform, now out of it.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You dress yourself these days.</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Friends downrange frequently call attention</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">to your color-filled wardrobe.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You are only following the rules, you tell them.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Camouflage, according to the Army, might make you a target.</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The colonel’s coins are numbered.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Two hundred and forty-nine have come before,</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">but you are a first:</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">once part of the tribe, but no longer in the fight.</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You showed up like Justice,</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">who also jumped on the plane late.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He got killed while pinned down<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">trying to secure a helicopter crash.</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You are here to share in stories like that.</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The coin is worthless, of course,</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">but it will pay your way back across the water,</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">once you have found yourself</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">at war.</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Why the hug?” you ask your buddies later.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is because you are like a puppy, they say.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You remind the Old Man of better days.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You are no longer dangerous.</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You are a puppy.</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You are a penny.</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 72px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You are home.</span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;"></span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;"></span></span><p></p><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;">In 2019, I co-edited a Military Writers Guild-sponsored anthology, </span></span><i><a href="http://amzn.to/2OZktFN">Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War</a></i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;">. Our contributors included poets and playwrights, novelists and educators, soldiers and sailors, think-tankers, historians, and more. Each was a practitioner of writing about war and national security topics, across various genres, platforms, and literary forms.</span></span></div><div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;">In one essay, “Recovering the Rhythm of War,” author and veteran <a href="https://amzn.to/2PHZvOF">Bill McCloud </a>told about how he generated <a href="https://amzn.to/3fx8aON">a 2017 collection of poems</a> after re-reading a stack of 52 letters—words he had originally written as a U.S. soldier serving in Vietnam in the years 1968-1969. “When we first return from war, many of us choose either to not talk about it at all (for a variety of reasons), or to talk about it strictly by describing our own personal experiences. We make no attempt, early on, to fit ourselves into the big picture,” McCloud wrote. “I was ready to fit myself, the everyman, into the puzzle.”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;">My part-time military career was full of disappointments and joys, but it was hardly the stuff of movies and recruiting posters. I’d been an average soldier—a middle-manager in uniform. I was never the smartest, strongest, or highest-ranking person in the room. My Army job involved pushing buttons, connecting wires, and delivering messages. I never fired my weapon in anger. I did sling a few sandbags at home in Iowa. And I got a “combat patch” for overseas peacekeeping duty. Still, as a National Guard member, I was proud to serve my community and my country. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 36px;">Through my service, I had experiences and made friends I’d never have otherwise encountered.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;">For me, poetry has been one way to assemble those fragments of memory, to add personal and historical contexts to them, and to extract potential meaning from them.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;">When I read Owen’s words from 1917, denouncing the platitude he calls “the old Lie”—that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country—I think about the betrayal some of today’s veterans feel when hearing about peace talks with the Taliban.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;">And when I read Kipling’s words about how civil society fails its military veterans—the 19th century equivalent to a meme about “Thank You for Your Service”—I think about how my fellow citizens spent a year “building capacity” on behalf of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, but returned to unemployment, uncertainty, and eroding civil rights at home.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;">And when I read McCloud’s essay and new poetry from the Vietnam War, I connect my own “everyman” military experiences to a larger societal puzzle: We are each part of a long narrative. We are each boots on the ground. We are all in this together.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;">Poetry makes this conversation possible. I’ve seen it during poetry readings and book events. I’ve also seen it during breakfast, while reading the social media feeds of my fellow poets. Recent war poetry from U.S. military service members and families is as rich and varied as that from World Wars I and II, as well as wars in Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf—and the Cold War years between.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;">Thanks to the Internet, war poetry has never been more accessible. </span>As a start, consider this friendly barrage of verse from modern airmen, soldiers, Marines, spouses, and others:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><ul class="ul1"><li class="li1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.fishousepoems.org/here-bullet/"><span class="s3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">“Here, Bullet”</span></a><span class="s4" style="text-decoration-line: underline;"> </span>by Brian Turner</span></li><li class="li1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://militaryexperience.org/a-meeting-in-amman/"><span class="s3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">“Meeting in Amman”</span></a> by Farzana Marie</span></li><li class="li1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://magazine.scintillapress.com/leaving-empty.html"><span class="s3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">“leaving empty”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></a> by Randy Brown</span></li><li class="li5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><span class="s3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><a href="https://www.lineofadvance.org/blog/stars-stripes-free">“The Stars and Stripes is Free”</a> b</span></span><span class="s5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">y Eric Chandler</span></span></li><li class="li5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><a href="https://www.wrath-bearingtree.com/2019/09/new-poetry-from-abby-e-murray/"><span class="s3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">“Happy Birthday, Army”</span></a> by Abby E. Murray</span></li><li class="li1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=817oHuA-DDk"><span class="s3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">“This is a Test”</span></a><span class="s4" style="text-decoration-line: underline;"> </span>by Nicole Goodwin</span></li><li class="li5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><a href="https://vimeo.com/131907290"><span class="s3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">“We are Not Your Heroes”</span></a> by Jenny Pacanowski</span></li><li class="li5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><a href="https://blackbird.vcu.edu/v11n2/poetry/martin_h/burn_page.shtml"><span class="s3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">“The Burn Pit Detail at FOB Cobra”</span></a> by Hugh Martin</span></li><li class="li5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://odarkthirtydotorg.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/v-4-2_web_text.pdf"><span class="s3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">“jokes with civilians”</span></a> by Anna Weaver<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></li><li class="li1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><a href="https://www.warriorwriters.org/artists/maurice.html">“Shush”</a> b</span>y Maurice Decaul</span></li><li class="li1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.missourireview.com/karen-skolfield-the-throwing-gap/"><span class="s3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">“The Throwing Gap”</span></a> by Karen Skolfield</span></li><li class="li5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="s5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58505/armed-services-editions"><span class="s3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">“Armed Services Editions”</span></a></span><span class="s6" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-decoration-line: underline;"> </span><span class="s5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">by Jehanne Dubrow</span></span></li><li class="li1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://d7.drunkenboat.com/db24/home/pamela-hart"><span class="s3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">“Transmigration”</span></a> by Pamela Hart</span></li><li class="li5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><a href="http://www.poetsandwar.com/stice/"><span class="s3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">“Widows Receive Free Tickets to the Birthday Ball”</span></a> by Lisa Stice</span></li><li class="li1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/88941/another-planet"><span class="s3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">“Another Planet”</span></a> by Dunya Mikhail</span></li><li class="li5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><a href="https://allyourprettywords.tumblr.com/post/183876786188/retrieving-the-guns-kate-gaskin"><span class="s3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">“Retrieving the Guns”</span></a> by Kate Gaskin</span></li></ul><span style="font-family: inherit;">Poetry opens up the spaces for mutual empathy and understanding, for building metaphorical bridges across the equally metaphorical “civil-military gap.” So, military service members, veterans, families, and others: Write or read a war poem or two. Read it aloud. Share it with others. Talk about it.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-indent: 36px;">April is <a href="http://www.fobhaiku.com/2021/04/listen-up-maggots-its-national-poetry.html">National Poetry Month</a>. Have you hugged a war poet today?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>*****</b></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Randy Brown embedded with his former Iowa Army National Guard unit as a civilian journalist in Afghanistan, May-June 2011. A 20-year veteran with a previous overseas deployment, he subsequently authored the 2015 poetry collection </i><a href="http://amzn.to/2n7zOIg">Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire<i>.</i></a><i> He also co-edited the 2019 Military Writers Guild-sponsored anthology </i><a href="http://amzn.to/2OZktFN">Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War</a><i>. Since 2015, he has been the poetry editor at </i><a href="https://militaryexperience.org/as-you-were-the-military-review-vol-13/">As You Were</a><i>, the literary journal of the non-profit organization Military Experience & the Arts. As “Charlie Sherpa,” he blogs about poetry at </i><a href="http://www.fobhaiku.com" style="font-style: italic;">www.fobhaiku.com</a><i>, and about military-themed writing at </i><a href="http://www.aimingcircle.org" style="font-style: italic;">www.aimingcircle.org</a><i>.</i></span></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-1013640130545743942020-10-05T11:30:00.002-05:002020-10-05T11:30:06.427-05:00FREE Mil-Writers' Event includes 'Get Published' Seminar<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin4k_eV4tGmTV4BGv1L_LnAWhJipXCDxVsmVT5lsLg6HhkMnBDPsq57mdGulgSH7N7ueI9Sj2sSkhm-sYhK7a_WiX92GfLZ29l8DOsDaocop58YkFVScl8auuVoyVOzKudcbQvRI1z_bo/s2016/Weaponizing+Water+screenshot.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1388" data-original-width="2016" height="440" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin4k_eV4tGmTV4BGv1L_LnAWhJipXCDxVsmVT5lsLg6HhkMnBDPsq57mdGulgSH7N7ueI9Sj2sSkhm-sYhK7a_WiX92GfLZ29l8DOsDaocop58YkFVScl8auuVoyVOzKudcbQvRI1z_bo/w640-h440/Weaponizing+Water+screenshot.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />The writer of the <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/">Red Bull Rising</a> blog will be <a href="https://www.norwich.edu/military-writers-symposium/symposium/speakers">one of six speakers</a> featured at this year's <b><a href="https://www.norwich.edu/military-writers-symposium">Norwich Military Writers' Symposium</a>, Oct. 7-8, 2020.</b><p></p><p></p><div>Hosted by the Norwich University centers for <a href="https://www.norwich.edu/pawc">Peace & War Studies</a> and <a href="https://www.norwich.edu/cgrs">Global Resilience & Security</a>, and underwritten by the <a href="https://www.norwich.edu/military-writers-symposium/pritzker">Pritzker Military Museum & Library Partnership</a>, this year's event is being conducted entirely on-line due to concerns related to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019">COVID-19</a>.<div><br /></div><div><b>Attendance is FREE and open to the public, <a href="https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/7564873504923160333">with registration</a>.</b> (NOTE: Use browsers Chrome, Firefox, or Microsoft Edge for registration page; Internet Explorer is not supported.) (NOTE: All times are Eastern DAYLIGHT Time.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Poet, journalist, book editor, and <a href="https://militarywritersguild.org/">Military Writers Guild</a> board member Randy Brown, who often blogs under the pseudonym <a href="http://www.aimingcircle.com/p/charlie-sherpa.html">"Charlie Sherpa,"</a> will speak on the topic of <b>"Aiming to Publish: Military-themed Writing Tips, Techniques, and Markets."</b> The talk is targeted to writing practitioners of all genres and media formats.</div><div><br /></div><div>"I'm thrilled to be in conversation with present and future leaders, about how they can <b>engage in professional discourse</b>, not only through written argumentation and analysis, but also through literary and speculative fiction, creative non-fiction, and even poetry and comic books," says Brown.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.norwich.edu/military-writers-symposium/history">Established in 1996</a>, the Norwich Military Writers' Symposium annually gathers writers, historians, journalists and biographers to the campus of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwich_University">Norwich University</a>, located in Northfield, Vermont.</div><div><br /></div><div>One of six <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_senior_military_college">senior military colleges</a>, the U.S. Department of Defense recognizes Norwich University as "the birthplace of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_Officers%27_Training_Corps">Reserve Officers' Training Corps</a>." The private institution serves more than 2,100 undergraduates and 1,300 graduate students via on-campus and on-line classes.</div><div><br /></div><div>Past Norwich Military Writers' Symposia have covered topics ranging from "Future Battlefields," "Endless War," and "Cyberwarfare and Privacy." <b>The theme of this year's event is <a href="https://www.norwich.edu/military-writers-symposium/symposium">"Weaponizing Water: Ancient Tactic, New Implications."</a></b> For a teaser video, click <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGIT0uSo7XQ">here</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>"Water and warfare share a long history, and today’s implications are equally strategic and tactical,"</b> <a href="https://www.norwich.edu/military-writers-symposium/symposium">organizers write</a>. "From the power struggle in the Arctic, to the war over water in the Middle East, to conflicts in Africa from depleted water resources, the intersection of the environment and security is an issue that will shape the twenty-first century."</div><div><br /></div><div>The annual symposium also highlights the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colby_Award">William E. Colby Military Writers' Award</a>, which recognizes <b>"a first work of fiction or non-fiction that has made a major contribution to the understanding of intelligence operations, military history, or international affairs."</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This year's awardee is <a href="http://adamhigginbotham.com/Archive/About.html">Adam Higginbotham</a>, author of the non-fiction work <a href="https://amzn.to/3ni30rm">"Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster."</a> </div><div><br /></div><div>The 2020 event will feature <a href="https://www.norwich.edu/military-writers-symposium/symposium/speakers">six speakers</a> using the GoToMeeting web application.
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<strong>All times are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (UTC-4):</strong></div><div><strong><br /></strong></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div><strong>9 a.m.—10 a.m., Wed., Oct. 7, 2020:</strong></div></div><div><div><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nadhir_Al-Ansari2">Nadhir Al-Ansari</a>, Globally Recognized Engineer and Author </div></div><div><div><i>Topic: "Analyzing the Complexities of Hydro-politics and Conflict of Tigris and Euphrates Rivers"</i></div></div><div><div><strong><br /></strong></div></div><div><div><strong>11 a.m.—12 Noon, Wed., Oct. 7, 2020:</strong></div></div><div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kilcullen">David Kilcullen</a>,<i> </i>Leading Global Security Expert, Thought Leader</div></div><div><div><i>Topic: "COVID, Conflict and Water: Lessons from the Arab Spring"</i></div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div><strong>12 Noon—1 p.m., Wed., Oct. 7, 2020:</strong></div></div><div><div><a href="http://adamhigginbotham.com/Archive/About.html">Adam Higginbotham</a>,
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2020 Colby Award Winner</div></div><div><div><i>Author of: <a href="https://amzn.to/3ni30rm">"Midnight in Chernobyl"</a></i></div></div><div><div><strong><br /></strong></div></div><div><div><strong>2 p.m.—3 p.m. Wed., Oct. 7, 2020:</strong></div></div><div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherri_W._Goodman">Sherri Goodman</a>, Leading Environmental Security Expert</div></div><div><div><i>Topic: "Water and Climate Security in an Age of Global Disruption"</i></div></div><div><div><i><br /></i></div></div><div><strong>4 p.m.—5 p.m., Wed., Oct. 7, 2020:</strong></div><div><div><a href="http://www.aimingcircle.com/p/charlie-sherpa.html">Randy Brown</a>, Author and Journalist</div></div><div><div><i>Topic: "Aiming to Publish: Military-themed Writing Tips, Techniques, and Markets"</i></div></div><div><div><strong><br /></strong></div></div><div><div><strong>6 p.m.—7 p.m., Wed., Oct. 7, 2020 (</strong>Via Facebook Live <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/802584723904103">here</a>.)</div></div><div><div><a href="https://www.norwich.edu/military-writers-symposium/schultz-fellowship">Nicole Navarro</a>, Norwich University Class of 2021, 2020 Schultz Fellow</div></div><div><div><i>Topic: "How the People’s Republic of China is Weaponizing Water Ports to Control Business, Politics, Perspective and Trade in Tanzania."</i></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div><strong><br /></strong></div></div><div><div><strong>12 noon—1 p.m., Thurs., Oct. 8, 2020</strong> (View on Norwich Writers' Symposium website <a href="https://www.norwich.edu/military-writers-symposium">here</a>.)</div></div><div><div>Panel discussion moderated by William Lyons</div></div></blockquote><div><em><ul></ul></em></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-85672328657180524782020-08-18T17:00:00.000-05:002020-08-18T17:12:37.081-05:00'Red Bull' Featured in 'True War Stories' Anthology<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7qGBjHHzgVGCnulfk-_sFc9CIQovVjr3hgY2e2pp44RunO0nQLUFPr30y2Mn3yad-hiLF5d95E1dO_i4uG4blnR0bwtapio3PudQOHjUsE94kpCTCyDWdkqEMjBFLZyfdQKyWAS4ULKg/s1600/Panjshir+Postcard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="500" height="494" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7qGBjHHzgVGCnulfk-_sFc9CIQovVjr3hgY2e2pp44RunO0nQLUFPr30y2Mn3yad-hiLF5d95E1dO_i4uG4blnR0bwtapio3PudQOHjUsE94kpCTCyDWdkqEMjBFLZyfdQKyWAS4ULKg/s640/Panjshir+Postcard.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
Fifteen captivating tales of humor, horror, and other wartime experiences are presented in the forthcoming 250-page comics anthology <a href="https://t.co/COiS11Muod">"True War Stories."</a> The 250-page hardcover, co-edited by <a href="http://www.alexdecampi.com/">Alex de Campi</a> and Iraq War veteran Khai Krumbhaar, will be published by <a href="https://z2comics.com/">Z2 Comics</a> in November 2020. However, a <a href="https://t.co/COiS11Muod">30-day Kickstarter campaign</a> launches today, Tues., Aug. 18, 2020. Through the crowd-funding effort, readers may preview and pre-order the book.<br />
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One of the featured "True War Stories" is related to the 2010-2011 deployment of the Iowa National Guard's 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/34th_Infantry_Division_(United_States)">34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division</a>.<br />
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Written by former Iowa National Guard citizen-soldier <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/p/about-this-blog.html">Randy Brown</a>, "In the Valley of Lions" originally appeared as an essay in Volume 2 of <a href="https://amzn.to/3aC1Vok">"Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors."</a> As "Charlie Sherpa," Brown writes about citizen-soldier culture at the <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/p/about-this-blog.html">Red Bull Rising</a> blog; about modern war poetry at <a href="http://www.fobhaiku.com/p/about-author.html">FOBhaiku.com</a>, and about military writing at<a href="http://www.aimingcircle.com/p/about.html"> The Aiming Circle</a>. He also edited a 2015 collection of U.S. Army public affairs journalism about the Iowa brigade's deployment, <a href="http://amzn.to/2g9j3EC">"Reporting for Duty: U.S. Citizen-Soldier Journalism from the Afghan Surge, 2010-2011."</a><br />
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"As far as I can tell, the last time the 'Red Bull' unit patch showed up in a comic book was in <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/2017/08/the-quest-for-combat-kelly-red-bull.html">'Combat Kelly' No. 21</a>, published in 1954," says Brown. "Unlike that story, however, this 'Red Bull' tale is the non-fiction—the real deal. I hope it adequately portrays some of the strange context and significant sacrifices our citizen-soldier neighbors made for the United States, for the people of Panjshir Province, and for the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA).'"<br />
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Art on the 13-page comics story "In the Valley of Lions" is by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ryanhoweart/">Ryan Howe</a>. Colors are by <a href="https://www.kellyfcolors.com/about">Kelly Fitzpatrick.</a><br />
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Brown's original essay contrasts a 2-day U.S. Department of State-sponsored "tourism conference" held in Pansjhir Province in June 2011, with a July 2011 insider attack that resulted in the deaths of Sgt. 1st Class <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/2011/09/iowa-red-bull-soldier-awarded-bronze.html"></a><a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/2011/07/iowa-red-bull-soldier-killed-in.html">Terryl Pasker</a>, 39, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and civilian law enforcement advisor Paul Protzenko, 46, of Enfield, Mass. Also injured in the attack was Master Sgt. <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/2011/09/iowa-red-bull-soldier-awarded-bronze.html">Todd Eipperle</a>, 46, of Marshalltown, Iowa. Eipperle was <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/2011/09/iowa-red-bull-soldier-awarded-bronze.html">recognized for his response</a> to the attack.<br />
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Later in 2011, the <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5991024443488082637">Red Bull Rising</a> blog posted additional information about the attack <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/2011/07/update-on-iowa-soldier-death-funeral.html">here</a>.<br />
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Published annually published by <a href="http://www.semopress.com/about/">Southeast Missouri State University Press</a>, Cape Girardeau, Mo., the <a href="http://www.semopress.com/books/proud-to-be-writing-by-american-warriors-volume-2/">"Proud to Be" series</a> is an anthology of military non-fiction, fiction, poetry, photography, and more. For a <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/">Red Bull Rising</a> review of the 2013 volume in which "In the Valley of Lions" first appeared, click <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/2013/12/2nd-to-be-delivers-new-military-voices.html">here</a>.<br />
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For more information about "True War Stories," and to pre-order one or more copies—including editions autographed by the co-editors—visit the Kickstarter campaign <a href="https://t.co/COiS11Muod">here</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-700341632621162252020-04-01T08:00:00.000-05:002020-04-01T08:00:03.911-05:00Listen Up, Maggots! It's National Poetry Month!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhgeGjmcLUVq0Ewmy4L0KqCCx-mKo78Pjr80hss1SLVto42klBZmgqtiAHu8NYplFoUEizCnOvtKV71bhi_2BC-PKMXlOlc5KJBIC55Wy6bFaeBbi3pGdoA9Lpgh5WL3xlwlnxgu8xpnk/s1600/drill-sergeant-low.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="438" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhgeGjmcLUVq0Ewmy4L0KqCCx-mKo78Pjr80hss1SLVto42klBZmgqtiAHu8NYplFoUEizCnOvtKV71bhi_2BC-PKMXlOlc5KJBIC55Wy6bFaeBbi3pGdoA9Lpgh5WL3xlwlnxgu8xpnk/s640/drill-sergeant-low.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">PHOTO BY: U.S. Army Sgt. Ken Scar</span></td></tr>
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<em>This post, written by the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Welcome-FOB-Haiku-Poems-Inside/dp/0996931708/ref=as_li_ss_tl?tag=redbulris-20&linkCode=sl1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=7540b6b92032d7d44f7b7d2dfc9cd2f5"><em>FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire</em>,</a> originally appeared on the <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/2016/04/listen-up-maggots-it-national-poetry.html">Red Bull Rising</a> blog April 6, 2016.</em> It also was featured in the recent <a href="https://militarywritersguild.org/">Military Writers Guild</a> anthology <em><a href="https://amzn.to/2OZktFN">Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War</a></em>.<br />
<br />
When packing for one of my first training experiences with the U.S. Army, back in the late 1980s, I knew that free time and footlocker space would be at a premium. I could live without luxuries like my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkman">Walkman</a> cassette player for a few months. I also wanted to avoid avoid too much gruff from drill sergeants. So I stuffed a paperback copy of Shakespeare's "Henry V" into my left cargo pocket, wrapped in a plastic sandwich bag, as my sole entertainment.<br />
<br />
If nothing else, I thought, I'd work on my memorization skills. ("Oh, for a muse of fire-guard duty …") Little did I realize that so much of my brain would already be filled, starting those summer months at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Knox">Fort Knox</a>, Ky., with the nursery rhymes of Uncle Sam. Training was full of poetry. Sometimes, it was profane. <i>"This is my rifle, this is my gun!"</i> Sometimes, it was pedagogical. <i>"I will turn the tourniquet / to stop the flow / of the bright red blood."</i> There were even times that it was nearly pathological.<i> "What is the spirit of the bayonet?! / Kill! Kill! Kill!"</i><br />
<br />
These basic phrases connected us new recruits to the yellow footprints of those who had stood here before, marched in our boots, squared the same corners, weathered the same abuses. Every time we moved, we were serenaded by sergeants. Counting cadence, calling cadence, bemoaning that Jody was back home, dating our women, drinking our beer. We learned our lines, our ranks, our patches, our places as much by tribal story-telling than by reading the effing field manual. Even our soldier humor was hand-me-down wisdom, tossed off like singsong hand grenades. Phrases like, <i>"Don't call me 'sir' / I work for a living!"</i> and <i>"You were bet-ter off when you left! / You're right!"</i><br />
<br />
Nobody's quite sure why April got the nod as <a href="https://www.poets.org/national-poetry-month/home">National Poetry Month</a>. I like to think that it's because of that line from T.S. Eliot's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waste_Land">"The Wasteland"</a>: <i>"April is the cruelest month."</i> Because that sounds like the Army. Besides, in springtime, the thoughts of every warrior-poet lightly turns to baseball; showers that bring flowers (<i>"If it ain't raining / it ain't training!"</i>); and the start of fighting season in Afghanistan.<br />
<br />
Poetry, I recognize, isn't every soldier's three cups of tea. Ever since I entertained my platoon mates with Prince Harry's inspiring <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Crispin%27s_Day_Speech#Text">St. Crispin's Day</a> speech, however, I've enjoyed sneaking poetry into the conversation. Perhaps more soldiers would appreciate poetry, were they to realize the inherent poetics of military life:<br />
<br />
<strong>Every time you go to war, you are engaged in a battle for narrative.</strong> Every deployment—individually as a soldier, or collectively as an Army or nation—is a story. Every story has a beginning, middle, and end. Every story is subject to vision, and revision. History isn't always written by the victors, but it is re-written by poets. Treat them well. Otherwise, they will cut you.<br />
<br />
<strong>Every time you eat soup with a knife, you are wielding a metaphor.</strong> Every "boots on the ground," every "line in the sand," every Hollywood-style named operation ("Desert Shield"! "Desert Storm"! "Enduring Freedom"!) is a metaphor that shapes our understanding of a war and its objectives. If you don't understand the dangerous end of a metaphor, you shouldn't be issued one.<br />
<br />
(There's also a corollary, and a warning: As missions change, so do metaphors. In other words, when a politician trots out a new metaphor for war, better <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=check+your+six">check your six</a>.)<br />
<br />
<strong>Every poem is a fragment of intelligence, a piece in the puzzle.</strong> A poem can slow down time, describe a moment in lush and flushed detail. It can transport the reader to a different time, a different battlefield. Most importantly, a poem can describe the experience of military life and death through someone else's eyes—a spouse, a villager, a soldier, a journalist. Poetry, in short, is a training opportunity for empathy.<br />
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Soldiers like to say that the enemy gets a vote, so it's worth noting that the <a href="http://amzn.to/22Vkfyi">enemy writes poetry</a>, too. Like reading doctrine and monitoring propaganda, reading an enemy's verse reveals motivations and values. Sun Tzu writes:
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.</blockquote>
<strong>Every time you quote a master, from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Tzu">Sun Tzu</a> to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Schwarzkopf,_Jr.">Schwarzkopf</a>, you are delivering aphorism.</strong> I liken the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphorism">aphorism</a>—a quotable-quote or maxim—to be akin to concise forms of poetry, such as haiku. In fact, in my expansive view, I think aphorisms should count as poetry. In the world of word craft, it can take as much effort to hone an effective aphorism than it does to write a 1,000-word essay. Aphorisms are laser-guided missiles, rather than carpet bombs. We should all spend our words more wisely.<br />
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<strong>Reading a few lines connects us to the thin red line of soldiers past, present, and future.</strong> Poetry puts us in the boots of those who have served before, hooks our chutes to a larger history and experience of war. The likes of Shakespeare's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Crispin%27s_Day_Speech#Text">"band of brothers"</a> speech, John McRae's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Flanders_Fields#Poem">"In Flanders Fields,"</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudyard_Kipling">Rudyard Kipling</a>'s poem <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_(Kipling_poem)#The_poem">"Tommy"</a> continue to speak to the experiences and sentiments of modern soldiers.<br />
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I am happy to report that more-contemporary war poets have continued the march.<br />
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Here's a quick list to probe the front lines of modern war poetry: From World War II, seek out Henry Reed's <a href="http://www.solearabiantree.net/namingofparts/namingofparts.html">"The Naming of Parts."</a> For a jolt of Vietnam Era parody, read Alan Farrell's <a href="https://winningwriters.com/past-winning-entries/blaming-of-parts">"The Blaming of Parts."</a> From the Iraq War, Brian Turner's <a href="http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poem/item/14245/auto/0/0/Brian-Turner/HERE-BULLET">"Here, Bullet."</a> In this tight shot group, modern soldiers will no doubt recognize themselves, their tools, and their times. Here is industrial-grade boredom, an assembly line of war, punctuated with humor and grit, gunpowder and lead.<br />
<br />
Want more? Check out print and on-line literary offerings from Veterans Writing Project's <a href="http://o-dark-thirty.org/the-review-2/">"O-Dark-Thirty"</a> quarterly literary journal; Military Experience & the Arts' twice-annual <a href="http://militaryexperience.org/as-you-were-the-military-review-vol-3/">"As You Were"</a>; the <a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/">"Line of Advance"</a> journal; and Southeast Missouri State University's <a href="http://amzn.to/1TeUVAM">"Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors"</a> annual anthology series.<br />
<br />
Finally, you can buy an pocket anthology of poetry, such as the Everyman's Library Pocket Poets edition of <a href="http://amzn.to/1MNJ6ux">"War Poems"</a> from Knopf, or Ebury's <a href="http://amzn.to/1LV01Rc">"Heroes: 100 Poems from the New Generation of War Poets."</a> Stuff it in your left cargo pocket. Read a page a day as a secular devotional, a meditation on war. Or, pick a favorite poem, print it out, and post it on the wall of your fighting position or office cube. Read the same poem, over and over again, during the course of a few weeks. See how it changes. See how it changes in you.<br />
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Remember: It's <a href="https://www.poets.org/national-poetry-month/home">National Poetry Month</a>. And every time you read a war poem, an angel gets its <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_forces">Airborne</a> wings.<br />
<br />
<strong> *****</strong><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.fobhaiku.com/p/about-author.html" style="font-style: italic;">Randy Brown</a><i> embedded with his former Iowa Army National Guard unit as a civilian journalist in Afghanistan, May-June 2011. He authored the poetry collection </i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Welcome-FOB-Haiku-Poems-Inside/dp/0996931708/ref=as_li_ss_tl?tag=redbulris-20&linkCode=sl1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=7540b6b92032d7d44f7b7d2dfc9cd2f5" style="font-style: italic;">Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire</a><i>. Recently, he co-edited the <a href="https://militarywritersguild.org/">Military Writers Guild</a> anthology <em><a href="https://amzn.to/2OZktFN">Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War</a></em>. He is the current poetry editor of Military Experience and the Arts' <a href="http://militaryexperience.org/as-you-were-the-military-review-vol-3/">"As You Were"</a> literary journal, and a member of the Military Writers Guild. As "Charlie Sherpa," he blogs about citizen-soldier culture at <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/" style="font-style: italic;">www.redbullrising.com</a> and military writing at <a href="http://www.aimingcircle.com/">www.aimingcircle.com</a>.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-32441108329778996202020-03-17T05:00:00.000-05:002020-03-17T05:00:04.034-05:00Mil-Writing Contest Expands to Include Family<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKIfpML_hLl-eMDCqb7ml2SjSjW77PPYQXCs9NzGn68rmPGEsgX9VMU2Ad2U0mtGZFFHjPVLiSuOWHPgqU0bz3Jw276SjD5vz7IWLWx-D0_yKOoPKqA2rF5Hze0dFlJmScrBDwTspyJkGK/s1600/darron-wright.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="640" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKIfpML_hLl-eMDCqb7ml2SjSjW77PPYQXCs9NzGn68rmPGEsgX9VMU2Ad2U0mtGZFFHjPVLiSuOWHPgqU0bz3Jw276SjD5vz7IWLWx-D0_yKOoPKqA2rF5Hze0dFlJmScrBDwTspyJkGK/s640/darron-wright.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Darron L. Wright PHOTO: Line of Advance</span></td></tr>
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Editors of Chicago-based non-profit literary journal <a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/">Line of Advance</a> have announced an <b>expansion of the <a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/colonel-darren-l-wright-contest/#.XlR61yMrIy4">Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Awards</a></b> will include additional prose (includes fiction, creative non-fiction, and hybrid forms) and poetry <b>categories for spouses, parents, and children of U.S. service members and veterans.</b><br />
<br />
Since 2016, the Wright Awards have annually recognized excellence in prose and poetry by U.S. military service members and veterans. With today's announcement, the Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Awards expands to four categories. <b>Cash prizes of $250, $150, and $100 will be available</b> in each of the following: <br />
<ul>
<li><b>Service Member/Veteran Prose</b> (includes fiction, creative non-fiction, hybrid)</li>
<li><b>Service Member/Veteran Poetry</b></li>
<li><b>Family Member Prose</b> (includes fiction, creative non-fiction, hybrid)</li>
<li><b>Family Member Poetry</b></li>
</ul>
<b> “The Line of Advance proudly serves as a leading venue for the best of ‘veterans-lit,’</b> with works by men and women who have served in all uniforms and in all eras,” says the journal’s editor-in-chief <a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/about/#.XlR7wSMrIy4">Christopher Lyke</a>, who will also edit the anthology. “We are also grateful to the underwriters of our cash prizes, who, through their generosity, help promote creatively crafted veterans’ stories to wider audiences.”<br />
<br />
“Also, by expanding the contest to include family members, we hope to better recognize the scope of sacrifices military families make on our behalf, in war and peace,” Lyke says. <b>“Some of today’s most insightful, inspiring literary engagement on themes of war and service is coming from military-adjacent writers.”</b><br />
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In February, Line of Advance <a href="http://www.aimingcircle.com/2020/02/anthology-to-celebrate-darron-l-wright.html">announced that a forthcoming print and e-book anthology </a>will collect <b>the winning entries from the first five years (2016-2020) of the competition.</b> The anthology will be published in October 2020. <b>This year’s Darron L. Wright award finalists will be included in the anthology.</b><br />
<br />
Submissions for the 2020 Darron L. Wright awards <b>open May 1, 2020</b> and close <b>May 31, 2020.</b> Winners will be notified not later than Aug. 31, 2020. More details are forthcoming.<br />
<br />
Administered by the journal since 2016, and underwritten by the Blake and Bailey Foundation, <b>the awards commemorate a U.S. Army leader and author who was killed in a September 2013 parachute training accident.</b> Darron L. Wright, 45, had deployed three times to Iraq, and was author of a 2012 memoir <a href="https://amzn.to/3a3eGa8">“Iraq Full Circle: From Shock and Awe to the Last Combat Patrol in Baghdad and Beyond.”</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.middlewestpress.com/">Middle West Press LLC</a> is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, fiction, journalism, and poetry, with projects that feature the unique voices of the American Midwest. As an independent micro-press, we publish one to four titles annually. <b>The Line of Advance/Col. Darron L. Wright Awards anthology will be the sixth of our titles involving war and military themes.</b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-34875824693440495842020-02-25T05:00:00.000-06:002020-02-25T05:00:04.046-06:00Anthology to Celebrate Darron L. Wright Awards<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioUsQnDkxBBpTjxFaGqYc7vjn4R0bzWdM17__pTNv75Bz8zDRUVgVGBUKIzQdr2vnEB9eY4tV8ZgCLbLWIUwxXKU5fAs1gcdy0XJ1e25nWBIFyZMrne3aRVWn1EHhOe_mnoPGCGc6v7MM/s1600/LOA+logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="875" data-original-width="960" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioUsQnDkxBBpTjxFaGqYc7vjn4R0bzWdM17__pTNv75Bz8zDRUVgVGBUKIzQdr2vnEB9eY4tV8ZgCLbLWIUwxXKU5fAs1gcdy0XJ1e25nWBIFyZMrne3aRVWn1EHhOe_mnoPGCGc6v7MM/s320/LOA+logo.png" width="320" /></a></div>
Editors of Chicago-based non-profit literary journal <a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/">Line of Advance</a> have announced a forthcoming print and e-book anthology will collect the winning entries from the first five years (2016-2020) of the annual <a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/colonel-darren-l-wright-contest/#.XlR61yMrIy4">Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Awards</a>.<br />
<br />
The awards annually recognize excellence in prose and poetry by U.S. military service members and veterans. Cash prizes of $250, $150, and $100 are available in each category.<br />
<br />
“The Line of Advance proudly serves as a leading venue for the best of ‘veterans-lit,’ with works by men and women who have served in all uniforms and in all eras,” says the journal’s editor-in-chief <a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/about/#.XlR7wSMrIy4">Christopher Lyke</a>, who will also edit the anthology. “We are also grateful to the underwriters of our cash prizes, who, through their generosity, help promote creatively crafted veterans’ stories to wider audiences.”<br />
<br />
This year’s Darron L. Wright award finalists will be included in the anthology. Submissions for the 2020 Darron L. Wright awards open May 1, 2020 and close May 31, 2020. Winners will be notified not later than Aug. 31, 2020. More details are forthcoming.<br />
<br />
The projected release date for “Line of Advance: A Celebration of Darron L. Wright Memorial Awards Finalists, 2016-2020” is Oct. 13, 2020.<br />
<br />
Administered by the journal since 2016, and underwritten by the Blake and Bailey Foundation, the awards commemorate a U.S. Army leader and author who was killed in a September 2013 parachute training accident. Darron L. Wright, 45, had deployed three times to Iraq, and was author of a 2012 memoir <a href="https://amzn.to/3a3eGa8">“Iraq Full Circle: From Shock and Awe to the Last Combat Patrol in Baghdad and Beyond.”</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.middlewestpress.com/">Middle West Press LLC</a> is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, fiction, journalism, and poetry, with projects that feature the unique voices of the American Midwest. As an independent micro-press, we publish one to four titles annually. The Line of Advance Darron L. Wright Awards anthology will be the sixth of our titles involving war and military themes.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-56531419132296032882020-01-21T12:00:00.000-06:002020-01-21T12:00:01.131-06:00'Red Bull' Author to Speak in Iowa City & Des Moines<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjWePrHamSaz2NnZN5Dkhjhmpzje8lFF_-KFsrzkjIqKkelmYzct0lL-tCbQQuTfzAmDkPBF0zKKEwoR5gaSqVXgbn53vI3qL_9B69RaPM4iK5Us8VZvfKDBnZCURIYKE3qPFKL-HASAk/s1600/The+Longer+We+Were+There.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="300" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjWePrHamSaz2NnZN5Dkhjhmpzje8lFF_-KFsrzkjIqKkelmYzct0lL-tCbQQuTfzAmDkPBF0zKKEwoR5gaSqVXgbn53vI3qL_9B69RaPM4iK5Us8VZvfKDBnZCURIYKE3qPFKL-HASAk/s640/The+Longer+We+Were+There.jpg" width="411" /></a></div>
Author <a href="https://stevenlmoore.com/about">Steven L. Moore</a>, a former Iowa National Guard citizen-soldier who deployed with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/34th_Infantry_Division_(United_States)">34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division</a> (2-34th BCT) to Afghanistan in 2010-2011, will conduct book talks in Iowa City and Des Moines, Iowa, Jan. 23 and Jan. 24, 2020.<br />
<br />
A 2010 graduate of the University of Iowa and now a resident of Oregon, Moore wrote <a href="https://amzn.to/2RBBhD8">"The Longer We Were There: A Memoir of a Part-Time Soldier,"</a> a collection of essays that won the 2018 award in non-fiction from the <a href="https://www.awpwriter.org/about/overview">Association of Writers and Writing Programs (A.W.P.)</a>.<br />
<br />
Widely published in literary magazines and journals, Moore was recently featured in the <a href="https://militarywritersguild.org/">Military Writers Guild</a>-sponsored anthology, <a href="https://amzn.to/2OZktFN">"Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War."</a> A selection of his work can be sampled FREE on-line at the author's website <a href="https://stevenlmoore.com/essays">here</a>.<br />
<br />
In 2018, AWP awards judge Dinty W. Moore wrote about Steven Moore's work:<br />
<blockquote>
"The Longer We Were There" is both a tale of our longest war and an astute coming of age memoir, the story of an English major who finds himself filling sandbags as an Iowa National Guardsman one day and deployed on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border the next. The prose is marked throughout by his compelling voice and precise description, and like Heller, Herr, and O’Brien before him, he understands that war can often be most hellish in its tedium. The Longer We Were There is an honest, absorbing, sharply-observed narrative that questions both the nature of war and the nature of the stories we tell ourselves.</blockquote>
Moore will speak at the following times and places:<br />
<blockquote>
<strong>Thurs., Jan. 23, 2020 at 7 p.m.<br />
</strong><br />
Prairie Lights Bookstore<br />
15 South Dubuque St.<br />
Iowa City, IA 52240<br />
<br />
<strong>Fri., Jan. 24, 2020 at 6:30 p.m.<br />
</strong><br />
Beaverdale Books<br />
2629 Beaver Ave. #S1<br />
Des Moines, IA 50310</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-72472649783971895322019-12-10T05:00:00.000-06:002019-12-10T09:30:40.029-06:00Two 'Red Bull' Soldier-Writers Featured in New Book!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgouxQWeUKIpuAgMybCzcQe9HUfUJztFouZQG4_UZyJjbNIM9AhGgVg01dxOzE5dzuaTFrBPlUnyEGigSSSYZJqnNDP1yle2cyGOr5bV7UDNidzdibhfDbNMu8pOqkQXU2U2RXN7j8JYnM/s1600/Rough+MWG+Cover+concept.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1171" data-original-width="1600" height="468" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgouxQWeUKIpuAgMybCzcQe9HUfUJztFouZQG4_UZyJjbNIM9AhGgVg01dxOzE5dzuaTFrBPlUnyEGigSSSYZJqnNDP1yle2cyGOr5bV7UDNidzdibhfDbNMu8pOqkQXU2U2RXN7j8JYnM/s640/Rough+MWG+Cover+concept.jpg" width="640" /></a>Featuring more than 60 leading and emerging writers of military- and war-themed fiction, non-fiction, journalism, poetry, and more, the anthology <a href="https://amzn.to/2OZktFN">"Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War"</a> launches TODAY, Dec. 10, 2019 in both print and Kindle e-book formats! The <a href="http://www.middlewestpress.com/">Middle West Press LLC</a> project is in partnership with the <a href="https://militarywritersguild.org/">Military Writers Guild</a>. Contributors include service members past and present, as well as scholars, historians, journalists, and civilians with experiences in international relations and national security.<br />
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The book coincidentally features a number of current and former Iowans—including two former members of the Iowa National Guard's 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/34th_Infantry_Division_(United_States)">34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division</a>. Steven L. Moore, author of <a href="https://amzn.to/2RAJrgz">"The Longer We Were There: A Memoir of a Part-Time Soldier,"</a> served in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laghman_Province">Laghman Province</a> during the brigade's 2010-2011 deployment to Afghanistan. Anthology editor Randy Brown helped produce a <a href="http://amzn.to/2g9j3EC">print collection of the brigade public affairs journalism</a> from that same deployment.<br />
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The anthology's title echoes <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Capra">Frank Capra</a>'s patriotic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_We_Fight">"Why We Fight"</a> films of World War II, the cover by illustrator Paul Hewitt of <a href="http://www.battlefield-design.co.uk/">Battlefield Design</a> reinterprets propaganda poster images from the same era.<br />
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Response to the anthology from other war writers has been overwhelming and positive:<br />
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"Page by page, line by line, these men and women—veterans and civilians of various eras and nations—speak the truth about what it is like not just to fight, but to write," notes U.S. Army veteran <a href="https://amzn.to/354VOW0">Doug Bradley</a>, author of <a href="https://amzn.to/356LFs1">"Who'll Stop the Rain: Respect, Remembrance, and Reconciliation in Post-Vietnam America"</a> as well as other <a href="https://amzn.to/352FZz8">non-fiction</a> and <a href="https://amzn.to/38pQcHR">fiction</a> about that war. "'The power of a good story is as important as the sharpest policy paper,' writes one Vietnam-veteran senator's son. As a U.S. Navy chopper pilot who himself flew in Afghanistan, he couldn't be more accurate. Read this book and discover what he means!"</blockquote>
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U.S. Marine veteran and literary agent <a href="http://tracycrow.com/">Tracy Crow</a> says: "A notable first, 'Why We Write' delivers immeasurable, experiential wisdom from an impressive range of military voices regarding the power and impact of writing—on the self, on the truth, and ultimately on the world. […] The courageous contributors within 'Why We Write' are filling a disturbing void for humanity by expressing a sense of urgency and historical reflection about the complexities of war—whether writing and reflecting on the insanely humorous, or the insanely atrocious."</blockquote>
Crow also serves as president of the national non-profit <a href="http://www.milspeak.org/milspeak/Welcome.html">MilSpeak Foundation, Inc.</a>, and is the author of six military-themed fiction and non-fiction titles, including <a href="https://amzn.to/36kG15C">"On Point: A Guide to Writing the Military Story." </a><br />
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The "Why We Write" anthology comprises four sections, each loosely organized around a theme:<br />
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<li><strong>Calls to Action, Calls to Arms:</strong> Stories of how-to and inspiration toward engaging the public and/or the military profession through writing!</li>
</ul>
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<li><strong>War Stories:</strong> Stories of writing success and lessons-learned!</li>
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<li><strong>Building Bridges & Platforms:</strong> Stories of how-to and inspiration toward building connections, communities, organizations, author platforms, etc.!</li>
</ul>
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<li><strong>The Arts of War & Writing:</strong> Essays about writing literary fiction, genre fiction, poetry, history, and more!</li>
</ul>
Women make up approximately one-third of the anthology's contributors. Approximately two-thirds of the contributors are past or present members of their respective countries' armed forces, with the remaining one-third being "civilians"—journalists, scholars, historians, and more. Military Writers Guild members comprise approximately one-fifth of contributors.<br />
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To order the $19.99 (U.S.) print version via Amazon.com, click <a href="https://amzn.to/2OZktFN">here</a>!<br />
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To order the $9.99 (U.S.) Kindle e-book version, click <a href="https://amzn.to/32IY97P">here</a>!<br />
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To order via an independent bookstore, contact <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5991024443488082637">Beaverdale Books</a>, Des Moines, Iowa at: 515.279.5400. Phone orders only. Shipping & Handling approximately $4 (U.S.).<br />
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Anthology co-editor Randy Brown is an award-winning war poet (<a href="http://amzn.to/2n7zOIg">Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire</a>) and U.S. Army veteran who embedded as civilian media in Afghanistan in 2011. A former newspaper and magazine journalist, he previously edited the book <a href="http://amzn.to/2g9j3EC">Reporting for Duty: U.S. Citizen-Soldier Journalism from the Afghan Surge, 2010-2011</a>.<br />
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Widely <a href="http://www.aimingcircle.com/p/charlie-sherpa.html">published in literary journals and anthologies</a>, he has also written the <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/">Red Bull Rising</a> military blog since December 2009. He writes about military-themed writing techniques and markets at <a href="http://www.aimingcircle.com/">The Aiming Circle blog</a>. He is a member of the Military Writers Guild. On Twitter, follow him at: <a href="https://twitter.com/FOB_Haiku">@FOB_Haiku</a><br />
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Steve Leonard is a retired U.S. Army strategist, a program director in organizational leadership at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Kansas">University of Kansas</a>, Lawrence, and the creative force behind the web comic <a href="https://amzn.to/2E2MhTK">Doctrine Man!!</a> He is published widely, including in the anthologies <a href="https://amzn.to/36fx1yA">Strategy Strikes Back: How Star Wars Explains Modern Military Conflict</a>, and <a href="https://amzn.to/36hq28s">Winning Westeros: How Game of Thrones Explains Modern Military Conflict</a>. He is a member of the Military Writers Guild. On Twitter, follow him at: <a href="https://twitter.com/Doctrine_Man">@Doctrine_Man</a><br />
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Established in 2017 for the purpose of promoting professional collaboration in the practice of writing, the national non-profit <a href="https://militarywritersguild.org/">Military Writers Guild</a> has grown to comprise more than 150 past and present service members, as well as civilians with experiences in international relations, national security, journalism, and intelligence.<br />
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<a href="http://www.middlewestpress.com/">Middle West Press LLC</a> is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, fiction, journalism, and poetry. As an independent micro-press, it publishes one to four titles annually. “Why We Write” is the first of its projects conducted in partnership with an association, and the fifth of its titles involving war and military themes.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-76691182917994338912019-10-15T11:00:00.000-05:002019-10-15T11:00:09.905-05:00Mil-Writers Anthology to be Published December 2019<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In a one-of-a-kind anthology, <b>more than 60 leading and emerging writers</b>—novelists, essayists, journalists, poets, podcasters, playwrights, and more—offer their <b>professional how-to secrets, techniques, and inspirations</b> around themes of war and the military.<br />
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Published in partnership with the non-profit Military Writers Guild, <strong>“Why We Write: Craft Essays about Writing War”</strong> is projected to be published Dec. 10, 2019. The line-up of notable and best-selling authors includes, in no particular order:
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<ul>
<li><a href="https://amzn.to/35um5O5">Phil Klay</a></li>
<li><a href="https://amzn.to/35zS3Zx">Vanya Eftimova Bellinger</a></li>
<li><a href="https://amzn.to/2BcDpJw">David Abrams</a></li>
<li><a href="https://amzn.to/2OOrmdl">Alex Finley</a></li>
<li><a href="https://amzn.to/2ONdVdY">Gayle Tzemach Lemmon</a></li>
<li><a href="https://amzn.to/2MGAH4h">Thomas E. Ricks</a></li>
<li><a href="https://amzn.to/2oFzfaw">Kate Germano</a></li>
<li><a href="https://amzn.to/2pnWi9D">Peter Van Buren</a></li>
<li><a href="https://amzn.to/33vTrKS">Kori Schake</a></li>
<li><a href="https://amzn.to/2OJ3AQ9">Max Brooks</a></li>
<li><a href="https://amzn.to/35yE5a2">Jessica Scott</a></li>
<li><a href="https://amzn.to/2IQXPvV">Carmen Gentile</a></li>
<li><a href="https://amzn.to/2IQr2an">Hugh Martin</a></li>
<li><a href="https://amzn.to/2VEerMy">Robert L. Bateman</a></li>
<li><a href="https://amzn.to/31eNRuT">P.W. Singer & August Cole</a></li>
</ul>
Established in 2017 for the purpose of promoting professional collaboration in the practice of writing, the Military Writers Guild (<a href="https://militarywritersguild.org/"><strong>www.MilitaryWritersGuild.org</strong></a>) has grown to comprise more than 150 past and present service members, as well as civilians with experiences in international relations, national security, journalism, and intelligence.<br />
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<b> “To some, the term ‘military writing’ evokes images of orders, annexes, and stacks of memorandums feeding the bureaucratic machine,”</b> notes Christopher G. Ingram, the current president of the organization. <b>“However, our members are intellectually curious, professionally engaged, and widely published across a range of creative and professional writing.”</b><br />
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<b> “Most importantly, we’re always motivated to exchange lessons and insights with others,”</b> Ingram says. “Partnering with best-selling authors and Middle West Press has been an ideal force-multiplier, in our organization’s inaugural publishing project.”<br />
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Middle West Press LLC (<a href="http://www.middlewestpress.com/"><strong>www.MiddleWestPress.com</strong></a>) is a Johnston, Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, fiction, journalism, and poetry. As an independent micro-press, we publish one to four titles annually. “Why We Write” is the first of its projects conducted in partnership with an association, and the fifth of its titles involving war and military themes.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-45803496655371722562019-09-13T11:00:00.000-05:002019-09-13T16:31:43.275-05:00Book Review: 'Still Come Home: A Novel'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTVIHvGSLfiLFEuDxfLeATaTbBoN8vNqGB2dsr3HbPsLT8hMLTyHDKQfNVomgS7lPLgAAin6xZc20PYPqpruaomHv7ZoPloDD6F-xg-l5Rob-cvA3pZH6hTdwUAOWyTg_UadKtx9-GIUk/s1600/Still+Come+Home+cover+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="333" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTVIHvGSLfiLFEuDxfLeATaTbBoN8vNqGB2dsr3HbPsLT8hMLTyHDKQfNVomgS7lPLgAAin6xZc20PYPqpruaomHv7ZoPloDD6F-xg-l5Rob-cvA3pZH6hTdwUAOWyTg_UadKtx9-GIUk/s640/Still+Come+Home+cover+2.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
<strong>Fiction Book Review: <a href="https://amzn.to/2Lu2So0">"Still Come Home"</a> by Katey Schultz</strong><br />
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<a href="https://kateyschultz.com/about/">Katey Schultz</a> is an educator and author based in North Carolina. In 2013, Schultz delivered <a href="https://amzn.to/2NaHNB1">"Flashes of War,"</a> an award-winning collection of 31 short stories, generated around U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each story is each told from the perspective of a single character, and many resolved in only two or three pages. Writing in the mode of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_fiction">"flash-fiction"</a> forces an author to pare down one's prose, but also to infuse meaning and metaphor to optimize each word.<br />
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As a writer, Schultz is a master of one of the principles of war: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_force">"economy of force."</a><br />
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In a new, 260-page novel, <a href="https://amzn.to/2Lu2So0">"Still Come Home,"</a> Schultz deploys her Spartan words to deliver what others have not: She distills the seemingly never-ending war in Afghanistan to a relatable scale, articulating through her characters the questions that can be asked about war, and duty, and family. In doing so, she illuminates the complex emotional calculations of regular people caught up in war, be they "friend," "enemy," or seemingly indifferent. Her work serves the highest calling in a heartless world: to create opportunities for empathy, and for reflection.<br />
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The action of "Still Come Home" takes place over three days, in a handful of settings near <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarinkot">Tarin Kot</a>, a real place in Southern Afghanistan's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urozgan_Province">Uruzgan Province</a>, as woven together through the voices and threads of three main characters.<br />
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(More geography: The novel settles into spaces between a semi-fictional Forward Operating Base ("FOB") Copperhead, and the fictional town of Imar, pop. 300. Potentially noteworthy to the readers of the <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/">Red Bull Rising</a> blog, the base is likely modeled after <a href="https://nautilus.org/publications/books/australian-forces-abroad/australian-bases-abroad/fob-davis-formerly-fob-ripley/">FOB Davis (aka FOB Ripley)</a>. FOB Davis was a coalition installation originally established in 2004 with help from the Iowa National Guard's <a href="https://wcfcourier.com/news/breaking_news/iowa-troops-heading-to-afghanistan/article_05a93fb0-7d4b-5570-a416-cad9e3e1e54e.html">Task Force 168</a>.)<br />
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There is Nathan Miller, a former farm-boy valedictorian who joined the active-duty Army right out of Indiana high school. Now a member of the North Carolina National Guard, Afghanistan is his fourth deployment. Miller is soon to return stateside to his semi-estranged wife, with whom he has one child and has lost another. There is the teenaged and possibly infertile <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtuns">Pashtun</a> woman Aaseya, who seeks to establish the stability and legitimacy she enjoyed before her family was killed in an explosion. She suspects the assassination took place after the family had been wrongly reported to the Taliban as U.S. collaborators. And there is her brick-maker husband Rahim, 37, her late father's cousin, who is a victim of the institutional sexual abuse of male children known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi">bacha bazi</a>.<br />
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Based on such relations, readers might incorrectly anticipate melodrama or comic-book soap opera. While engines of hope and shame drive much of the plot, however, the narrative never feels one- or two-dimensional. Complexity happens. Objectives change. Characters move out smartly, based on their intelligence. Most importantly, in all of this, the author treats her Afghan characters with care and content equal to their American counterparts.<br />
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War is hell, after all. On everybody. Especially family. And everyone's got family.<br />
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In a typical selection, Schultz describes a three-vehicle convoy's arrival in Imar with semi-automatic rhythm:<br />
<blockquote>
The convoy nears the main part of the village. A vendor selling kebabs works frantically to hold his makeshift cart intact as the Spartans vibrate past. Miller can see actual residences now—mud-cooked family homes, the occasional two-story dwelling. Coils of smoke lift from several courtyards. Some homes have no windows or openings at all, just a hand-built wall surrounding each compound of small, interconnected dwellings. Others have cut tiny spaces to welcome the light and air, faded red or yellow curtains flapping thinly in the breeze. Three little girls hurry from a hiding spot behind an outbuilding. The oldest shuffles the other two away from the convoy and looks over her shoulder at the men, moving with the practiced hustle of war. Even here, at the far reaches of nowhere, they seem suspicious.</blockquote>
Schultz has just as carefully curated the time of her story, as much as she has chosen the place. The year is just before the <a href="https://www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/NEWS-ARTICLES/News-Article-View/Article/883961/petraeus-afghan-surge-will-target-terror-leaders/">"Afghan Surge"</a> of 2010-2011; just before <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/07/01/afghanistan.humvees/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+CNN+-+Top+Stories%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher">Humvees are banned from deploying outside the wire</a>; and just after a <a href="http://www.captainsjournal.com/2009/06/23/changes-to-the-rules-of-engagement-for-afghanistan/">controversial new set of Rules of Engagement ("R.O.E.") has been issued to coalition troops</a> by U.S. Gen. <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=stanley+mcchrystal+wikipedia&oq=stanley+mcchrystal+wikipedia&aqs=chrome.0.0l4.11416j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">Stanley McChrystal</a>.<br />
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In the posh think-tank phrasing of the day, the counter-insurgency tactics were intended to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winning_hearts_and_minds">"win hearts and minds"</a> by exercising restraint in the application of violence. Nobody wants to kill civilians, of course, but many rank-and-file soldiers chaffed at the ROE, feeling as if they'd been told not to defend themselves.<br />
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As both metaphor and at a meta-level, this mix of time and place is an ideal observation point from which to consider American involvement in Afghanistan. At no other time did the country's declaring victory and coming home seem more likely than 2010. (At risk of self-promotion, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKU88jK4WIM">this trailer video for "Reporting for Duty"</a> captures something of the hopeful "clear, hold, build" spirit of the time.) Through her storytelling, what Schultz exposes is not necessarily that these "strategies" (tactics and techniques, really) were wrong, but that we were asking the wrong questions.<br />
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War is hell, after all. And hell is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dan">koan</a>.<br />
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Schultz writes: "Miller calls to mind the [ROE] directive, its ominous sentiment: The Taliban cannot militarily defeat us, but we can defeat ourselves. Like grabbing fistfuls of sand—that's what this war is. Like trying to hold onto the impossible."<br />
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Later, as Miller is about to move out with his men, he inventories his squad emotionally, noting each soldier's customized need for redemption. "And with that, the war is theirs. They will fight it for these reasons. Not for freedom. Not for politics. Not for God or country or trucking companies. But for the individual things. The needles of hurt across a spectrum of life."<br />
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Against this, the troops collectively face, an unseen, random, and constant threat. "They all know the risks," Schultz writes. "No front lines in this war. Enemies, ambushes, and IEDs popping up willy-nilly, a stomach-churning child’s game of anticipation. It could be now. Or now. Now."<br />
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This game of roulette is what we have asked of our soldiers, our fellow citizens. For 18 years and counting.<br />
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At readings and other events, and <a href="https://kateyschultz.com/about/">on her website</a>, Schultz tells audiences that "Flashes of War" stemmed from the urge to understand, as a citizen and educator and artist, what her country was doing in her name. Somehow without ever traveling downrange herself, her stories include sounds and smells and slang that consistently ring true. In "Still Come Home," Schultz's prose is similarly well-researched, and carefully targeted. Through her fiction, Schultz has not only successfully captured the cultural landscape of Afghanistan in 2009, but the on-going equation of American involvement in Afghanistan. And she's packaged it in an easily accessible form, without judgment.<br />
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Not, however, without hope.<br />
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In present-tense, Schultz artfully but explicitly traces each main character's shifting wants and needs. Grabbing at their own fistfuls of sand, Miller, Aaseya, and Rahim continually triangulate their respective decisions with their individual desires for safety, security, and family. Miller, for example, volunteered to deploy without first soliciting his wife's opinion. She assumes he wants to play soldier again. In reality, he hopes to make up for past mistakes—some of which have occurred on the battlefield, and some that have happened back home. At one point, as Schultz succinctly states: "This tour is Miller’s final chance to find his cool again, forget he ever drafted a suicide note, and land softly back home, back into marriage, composed and capable as ever."
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The obvious question would seem to be, can he still come back home?<br />
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The essential question is, can we?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-82612971491852781022019-06-13T05:00:00.000-05:002019-06-13T05:00:01.424-05:00Solider-Poet to Speak at 'Americans for the Arts' 2019<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The writer of the <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/">Red Bull Rising</a> blog will be presenting as part of a panel at the <a href="http://convention.artsusa.org/about">2019 National Convention</a> for <a href="https://www.americansforthearts.org/about-americans-for-the-arts">Americans for the Arts</a>, Minneapolis, Minn. <a href="http://convention.artsusa.org/schedule/session/description/changing-and-honoring-narrative-military-experience">"Changing and Honoring the Narrative of Military Experience"</a> will be presented from 1:45 to 3 p.m. Sat., June 15, at the <a href="http://convention.artsusa.org/travel-and-housing/hotel-information">Hilton Minneapolis</a>, 1001 Marquette Ave., Minneapolis.<br />
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Randy Brown embedded with his former Iowa Army National Guard unit as a civilian journalist in Afghanistan, May-June 2011. He authored the 2015 poetry collection <a href="http://amzn.to/2n7zOIg">"Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire"</a>, and edited the 2017 journalism collection <a href="http://amzn.to/2g9j3EC">"Reporting for Duty: Citizen-Soldier Journalism from the Afghan Surge, 2010-2011."</a><br />
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Brown's essays, journalism, and poetry have appeared widely both on-line and in print. Since 2015, he has served as the poetry editor for the national non-profit Military Experience & the Arts' literary journal "As You Were." As "Charlie Sherpa," he writes about citizen-soldier culture at: <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/">www.redbullrising.com</a>; about military writing at: <a href="http://www.aimingcircle.com/">www.aimingcircle.com</a>; and about modern war poetry at: <a href="http://www.fobhaiku.com/">www.fobhaiku.com</a>.<br />
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You can follow him on Twitter: <a href="http://www.fobhaiku.com/">@FOB_Haiku</a><br />
<br />
Other panelists participating in the Saturday event include:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://mnhum.org/blog/share-your-story-of-military-service/">Blake Rondeau</a>, Minnesota Humanities Center</li>
<li><a href="https://veteransocialjustice.wordpress.com/brigette-mccoy/">BriGette McCoy</a>, Women Veteran Social Justice</li>
<li><a href="https://www.jamesmoad.com/">Jay Moad</a>, playwright and performer</li>
</ul>
The event will be facilitated by <a href="https://www.americansforthearts.org/about-americans-for-the-arts/staff/ms-marete-wester">Marete Wester</a>, senior director of policy, Americans for the Arts.<br />
<br />
According to the description for the <a href="http://convention.artsusa.org/schedule/session/description/changing-and-honoring-narrative-military-experience">"Changing and Honoring the Narrative of Military Experience"</a> discussion:
<br />
<blockquote>
As the Forever War in Afghanistan continues, communities need to explore ways to help our returning Veterans reintegrate into their communities. The Minnesota Humanities Center empowers Veterans from all conflicts and wars to speak in their own voices through plays, discussions, literature and Veterans’ Voices. Writing Workshops are facilitated by military writers who are Veterans themselves, offering peer mentorship, instruction, and encouragement to those seeking to express the military experience through essays, poetry, and performance.</blockquote>
Learning objectives are:<br />
<blockquote>
1. See how storytelling helps in the Veterans’ healing process, reentry and reintegration into their communities.<br />
<br />
2. Discuss how writing can help bridge the “civilian-military gap” between the military and the people they serve.<br />
<br />
3. Explore how using the humanities can foster dialogue between military and civilian populations.</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-41363256927508867672019-04-01T05:00:00.000-05:002019-04-01T05:00:03.564-05:00LIsten Up, Maggots! It's National Poetry Month!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhgeGjmcLUVq0Ewmy4L0KqCCx-mKo78Pjr80hss1SLVto42klBZmgqtiAHu8NYplFoUEizCnOvtKV71bhi_2BC-PKMXlOlc5KJBIC55Wy6bFaeBbi3pGdoA9Lpgh5WL3xlwlnxgu8xpnk/s1600/drill-sergeant-low.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="438" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhgeGjmcLUVq0Ewmy4L0KqCCx-mKo78Pjr80hss1SLVto42klBZmgqtiAHu8NYplFoUEizCnOvtKV71bhi_2BC-PKMXlOlc5KJBIC55Wy6bFaeBbi3pGdoA9Lpgh5WL3xlwlnxgu8xpnk/s640/drill-sergeant-low.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">PHOTO BY: U.S. Army Sgt. Ken Scar</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<em>This post, written by the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Welcome-FOB-Haiku-Poems-Inside/dp/0996931708/ref=as_li_ss_tl?tag=redbulris-20&linkCode=sl1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=7540b6b92032d7d44f7b7d2dfc9cd2f5">"FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire,"</a> originally appeared on the <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/2016/04/listen-up-maggots-it-national-poetry.html">Red Bull Rising</a> blog April 6, 2016.</em><br />
<br />
When packing for one of my first training experiences with the U.S. Army, back in the late 1980s, I knew that free time and footlocker space would be at a premium. I could live without luxuries like my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkman">Walkman</a> cassette player for a few months. I also wanted to avoid avoid too much gruff from drill sergeants. So I stuffed a paperback copy of Shakespeare's "Henry V" into my left cargo pocket, wrapped in a plastic sandwich bag, as my sole entertainment.<br />
<br />
If nothing else, I thought, I'd work on my memorization skills. ("Oh, for a muse of fire-guard duty …") Little did I realize that so much of my brain would already be filled, starting those summer months at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Knox">Fort Knox</a>, Ky., with the nursery rhymes of Uncle Sam. Training was full of poetry. Sometimes, it was profane. <i>"This is my rifle, this is my gun!"</i> Sometimes, it was pedagogical. <i>"I will turn the tourniquet / to stop the flow / of the bright red blood."</i> There were even times that it was nearly pathological.<i> "What is the spirit of the bayonet?! / Kill! Kill! Kill!"</i><br />
<br />
These basic phrases connected us new recruits to the yellow footprints of those who had stood here before, marched in our boots, squared the same corners, weathered the same abuses. Every time we moved, we were serenaded by sergeants. Counting cadence, calling cadence, bemoaning that Jody was back home, dating our women, drinking our beer. We learned our lines, our ranks, our patches, our places as much by tribal story-telling than by reading the effing field manual. Even our soldier humor was hand-me-down wisdom, tossed off like singsong hand grenades. Phrases like, <i>"Don't call me 'sir' / I work for a living!"</i> and <i>"You were bet-ter off when you left! / You're right!"</i><br />
<br />
Nobody's quite sure why April got the nod as <a href="https://www.poets.org/national-poetry-month/home">National Poetry Month</a>. I like to think that it's because of that line from T.S. Eliot's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waste_Land">"The Wasteland"</a>: <i>"April is the cruelest month."</i> Because that sounds like the Army. Besides, in springtime, the thoughts of every warrior-poet lightly turns to baseball; showers that bring flowers (<i>"If it ain't raining / it ain't training!"</i>); and the start of fighting season in Afghanistan.<br />
<br />
Poetry, I recognize, isn't every soldier's three cups of tea. Ever since I entertained my platoon mates with Prince Harry's inspiring <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Crispin%27s_Day_Speech#Text">St. Crispin's Day</a> speech, however, I've enjoyed sneaking poetry into the conversation. Perhaps more soldiers would appreciate poetry, were they to realize the inherent poetics of military life:<br />
<br />
<strong>Every time you go to war, you are engaged in a battle for narrative.</strong> Every deployment—individually as a soldier, or collectively as an Army or nation—is a story. Every story has a beginning, middle, and end. Every story is subject to vision, and revision. History isn't always written by the victors, but it is re-written by poets. Treat them well. Otherwise, they will cut you.<br />
<br />
<strong>Every time you eat soup with a knife, you are wielding a metaphor.</strong> Every "boots on the ground," every "line in the sand," every Hollywood-style named operation ("Desert Shield"! "Desert Storm"! "Enduring Freedom"!) is a metaphor that shapes our understanding of a war and its objectives. If you don't understand the dangerous end of a metaphor, you shouldn't be issued one.<br />
<br />
(There's also a corollary, and a warning: As missions change, so do metaphors. In other words, when a politician trots out a new metaphor for war, better <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=check+your+six">check your six</a>.)<br />
<br />
<strong>Every poem is a fragment of intelligence, a piece in the puzzle.</strong> A poem can slow down time, describe a moment in lush and flushed detail. It can transport the reader to a different time, a different battlefield. Most importantly, a poem can describe the experience of military life and death through someone else's eyes—a spouse, a villager, a soldier, a journalist. Poetry, in short, is a training opportunity for empathy.<br />
<br />
Soldiers like to say that the enemy gets a vote, so it's worth noting that the <a href="http://amzn.to/22Vkfyi">enemy writes poetry</a>, too. Like reading doctrine and monitoring propaganda, reading an enemy's verse reveals motivations and values. Sun Tzu writes:
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.</blockquote>
<strong>Every time you quote a master, from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Tzu">Sun Tzu</a> to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Schwarzkopf,_Jr.">Schwarzkopf</a>, you are delivering aphorism.</strong> I liken the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphorism">aphorism</a>—a quotable-quote or maxim—to be akin to concise forms of poetry, such as haiku. In fact, in my expansive view, I think aphorisms should count as poetry. In the world of word craft, it can take as much effort to hone an effective aphorism than it does to write a 1,000-word essay. Aphorisms are laser-guided missiles, rather than carpet bombs. We should all spend our words more wisely.<br />
<br />
<strong>Reading a few lines connects us to the thin red line of soldiers past, present, and future.</strong> Poetry puts us in the boots of those who have served before, hooks our chutes to a larger history and experience of war. The likes of Shakespeare's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Crispin%27s_Day_Speech#Text">"band of brothers"</a> speech, John McRae's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Flanders_Fields#Poem">"In Flanders Fields,"</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudyard_Kipling">Rudyard Kipling</a>'s poem <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_(Kipling_poem)#The_poem">"Tommy"</a> continue to speak to the experiences and sentiments of modern soldiers.<br />
<br />
I am happy to report that more-contemporary war poets have continued the march.<br />
<br />
Here's a quick list to probe the front lines of modern war poetry: From World War II, seek out Henry Reed's <a href="http://www.solearabiantree.net/namingofparts/namingofparts.html">"The Naming of Parts."</a> For a jolt of Vietnam Era parody, read Alan Farrell's <a href="https://winningwriters.com/past-winning-entries/blaming-of-parts">"The Blaming of Parts."</a> From the Iraq War, Brian Turner's <a href="http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poem/item/14245/auto/0/0/Brian-Turner/HERE-BULLET">"Here, Bullet."</a> In this tight shot group, modern soldiers will no doubt recognize themselves, their tools, and their times. Here is industrial-grade boredom, an assembly line of war, punctuated with humor and grit, gunpowder and lead.<br />
<br />
Want more? Check out print and on-line literary offerings from Veterans Writing Project's <a href="http://o-dark-thirty.org/the-review-2/">"O-Dark-Thirty"</a> quarterly literary journal; Military Experience & the Arts' twice-annual <a href="http://militaryexperience.org/as-you-were-the-military-review-vol-3/">"As You Were"</a>; the <a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/">"Line of Advance"</a> journal; and Southeast Missouri State University's <a href="http://amzn.to/1TeUVAM">"Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors"</a> annual anthology series.<br />
<br />
Finally, you can buy an pocket anthology of poetry, such as the Everyman's Library Pocket Poets edition of <a href="http://amzn.to/1MNJ6ux">"War Poems"</a> from Knopf, or Ebury's <a href="http://amzn.to/1LV01Rc">"Heroes: 100 Poems from the New Generation of War Poets."</a> Stuff it in your left cargo pocket. Read a page a day as a secular devotional, a meditation on war. Or, pick a favorite poem, print it out, and post it on the wall of your fighting position or office cube. Read the same poem, over and over again, during the course of a few weeks. See how it changes. See how it changes in you.<br />
<br />
Remember: It's <a href="https://www.poets.org/national-poetry-month/home">National Poetry Month</a>. And every time you read a war poem, an angel gets its <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_forces">Airborne</a> wings.<br />
<br />
<strong> *****</strong><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.fobhaiku.com/p/about-author.html" style="font-style: italic;">Randy Brown</a><i> embedded with his former Iowa Army National Guard unit as a civilian journalist in Afghanistan, May-June 2011. He authored the poetry collection </i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Welcome-FOB-Haiku-Poems-Inside/dp/0996931708/ref=as_li_ss_tl?tag=redbulris-20&linkCode=sl1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=7540b6b92032d7d44f7b7d2dfc9cd2f5" style="font-style: italic;">Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire</a><i> (Middle West Press, 2015). He is the current poetry editor of Military Experience and the Arts' <a href="http://militaryexperience.org/as-you-were-the-military-review-vol-3/">"As You Were"</a> literary journal, and a member of the <a href="https://www.militarywritersguild.org/">Military Writers Guild</a>. As "Charlie Sherpa," he blogs about military culture at <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/" style="font-style: italic;">www.redbullrising.com</a> and military writing at <a href="http://www.aimingcircle.com/">www.aimingcircle.com</a>.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-670827881951674622018-12-05T05:00:00.000-06:002018-12-05T05:00:04.569-06:00Red Bull Veterans & Others to Share Stories on Stage<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ3n1qN4Namir6FvIehLIj5nSgqGNet6mUjBlpa0UThr38HKJR1TKqf06pY7oOihjcL6ISaTt9Megm3korJ2WF0kQTu94UtpxVb4qO8c_77KTgnL3zGSuZaB5rlf6aHNx_NOFFM3Me9PY/s1600/DM+storytellers+logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="162" data-original-width="490" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ3n1qN4Namir6FvIehLIj5nSgqGNet6mUjBlpa0UThr38HKJR1TKqf06pY7oOihjcL6ISaTt9Megm3korJ2WF0kQTu94UtpxVb4qO8c_77KTgnL3zGSuZaB5rlf6aHNx_NOFFM3Me9PY/s640/DM+storytellers+logo.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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Five Iowa military veterans—four of them alumni of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/34th_Infantry_Division_(United_States)">34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division</a>—will share stories of their respective military experiences in the last installment of the Des Moines Register's <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/entertainment/2017/12/06/full-2018-season-des-moines-register-live-storytelling-events-released/901814001/">"Storytellers Project" 2018 season</a>. Stage performances are 5:30 and 8 p.m., Thurs., Dec. 6. 2018 at <a href="https://thetearoomdsm.com/">The Tea Room</a>, 713 Walnut St. No. 600, Des Moines, Iowa.<br />
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Ticket information is <a href="http://www.storytellersproject.com/des-moines/">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Previous 2018 performances in the series have included themes on rural life, siblings, and everyday miracles. Included in the <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/entertainment/2018/11/13/des-moines-storytellers-project-present-war-stories-military-army-air-force-national-guard/1817780002/">line-up of "War Stories" cast members</a> are:<br />
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Brian Lenz</strong>, a retired U.S. Air Force officer who became an environmental scientist. </li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Sara Maniscalco Robinson</strong>, a senior non-commissioned officer in the Iowa Army National Guard, and founder of <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/local/columnists/daniel-finney/2018/06/15/iowa-veterans-perspective-korean-war-forgotten-war-sara-maniscalo-robinson-national-guard/682516002/">Iowa Veterans' Perspective</a>, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that documents veterans' stories. Maniscalco Robinson served with Iowa's 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Battalion during a 2003 deployment to Egypt. </li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Jodi Marti</strong>, an Iowa Army National Guard officer who served as commander of Echo Company, 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Battalion during the unit's 2010-2011 deployment to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihtarlam">Mehtar Lam</a>, Afghanistan. </li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Miranda Pleggenkuhle</strong>, an Iowa Army National Guard officer who served as part of Task Force Archer in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagram_Airfield">Bagram</a>, Afghanistan, during the 2010-2011 deployment of Iowa's 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division. </li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>James Suong</strong>, a non-commissioned officer in the Iowa Army National Guard, who once served in Iowa's 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry while on a 2003 deployment to Kosovo. Before immigrating to America, he spent some of his youth in a Cambodian child-labor camp.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-34689965239917786992018-11-01T05:00:00.000-05:002018-11-01T05:00:05.708-05:00P.O.W. Book-turned-Opera Comes to Des Moines Area<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxj05RaCdqaeOMoj3ioREfKk1hGsxmLtuBDIv_2eI9FH49FbSbN1MLlz03Z2Dcm_od0d-QNmQBLyPK_ggAherdcslinE1dk_oxiei7UddO78Wo0L9mvwowD4y2UkG1ODsi38O9ygdVWOY/s1600/Glory+Denied+preview+performance+PDF+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1050" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxj05RaCdqaeOMoj3ioREfKk1hGsxmLtuBDIv_2eI9FH49FbSbN1MLlz03Z2Dcm_od0d-QNmQBLyPK_ggAherdcslinE1dk_oxiei7UddO78Wo0L9mvwowD4y2UkG1ODsi38O9ygdVWOY/s640/Glory+Denied+preview+performance+PDF+%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnxTxWThrcztWddHMFGqtNJ-TZQM4x0vt6rA8u2WaIaTX-OQCAVyrpjYTSXsI44B1nKhGpWwop9eFua2bv6eT-4iawb7e6tcaYcESHEB46RuJzJXseV0r91y7N7-OImaUJ3Ewrcu9CROc/s1600/glorydeniedcover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnxTxWThrcztWddHMFGqtNJ-TZQM4x0vt6rA8u2WaIaTX-OQCAVyrpjYTSXsI44B1nKhGpWwop9eFua2bv6eT-4iawb7e6tcaYcESHEB46RuJzJXseV0r91y7N7-OImaUJ3Ewrcu9CROc/s320/glorydeniedcover.jpg" width="213" /></a>When military reporter <a href="http://www.militaryupdate.com/biography.html">Tom Philpott</a> first encountered the tragic story of an Army family that lost its way during the wartime captivity of its patriarch, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_James_Thompson">Floyd James "Jim" Thompson</a>, he could hardly have predicted the journey would include more than a decade of reporting; publishing his work not as journalism, but as oral history; and soon to be an English-language opera to be performed Nov. 16-18 2018 on the campus of the Iowa National Guard's Camp Dodge, located in Johnston, Iowa.<br />
<br />
Performances of "Glory Denied" are:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>7:30 p.m. Fri., Nov. 16</li>
<li>7:30 p.m. Sat., Nov. 17</li>
<li>2 p.m. Sun., Nov. 18</li>
</ul>
<br />
Tickets are $45, and may be purchased via the <a href="http://desmoinesmetroopera.org/">Des Moines Metro Opera</a> at 515.961.6221 or <a href="http://www.desmoinesmetroopera.org/">www.desmoinesmetroopera.org</a>. On Fri., Nov. 16, there will be a 5:30 p.m. reception featuring the opera's composer, <a href="https://tomcipullo.net/biography">Tom Cipullo</a>.<br />
<br />
A FREE preview will be presented to veterans, currently service members, and their guests 7 p.m. Thurs., Nov. 15. Contact the Des Moines Metro Opera for registration.<br />
<br />
According to press materials:<br />
<blockquote>
America’s longest held prisoner of war returns to a country he no longer recognizes and a family who barely recognizes him. "Glory Denied" speaks to the plight of so many of our veterans who nobly fight for their country but face huge challenges when it comes to repatriation—and their longed-for civilian lives—after service. This true story of Vietnam veteran Colonel Jim Thompson explores the unimaginable bravery asked of soldiers and even the nature of hope itself.</blockquote>
Following each performance, cast members and Iowa National Guard veterans and soldiers will participate in a curated talk-back session with audience members.<br />
<br />
This is Des Moines Metro Opera's second collaboration with the Iowa National Guard. In January 2017, a production of David T. Little's rock-infused "Soldier Songs" was also conducted at Camp Dodge. See the Red Bull Rising coverage <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/2017/01/stories-opera-at-camp-dodge-iowa-jan-27.html">here</a>.<br />
<br />
The story behind <a href="http://desmoinesmetroopera.org/productions/glorydenied/">"Glory Denied"</a> was previously covered on the Red Bull Rising blog in a <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/2013/01/vietnam-pow-story-finds-new-life-as.html">Jan. 11, 2013 post</a>.<br />
<br />
Thompson, the longest-held U.S. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_war">Prisoner of War (P.O.W.)</a> in American history, spent 9 years in North Vietnamese captivity. The first five were in solitary confinement. He attempted to escape five times. He came home in 1973.<br />
<br />
"He dreamed in his mind of building this dream house when he got home. It turns out that his wife was living for eight or nine years with another man, who was posing as the father of the children," says Philpott, in the 2017 Red Bull Rising interview. "The boy, who was the only boy of four children, born the day after he was shot down, was called in at 9-years-old and told, 'This is not your dad. Here's a picture of your dad. He's coming home.'"<br />
<br />
Then a reporter for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Times">Army Times</a>, Philpott first wrote a magazine-length article about Thompson in 1986. Thompson had suffered a stroke in 1980, and was living alone in Key West, Fla. To get past his <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressive_aphasia">expressive aphasia</a>, Thompson played for Philpott a tape recording of a local media interview he'd given after his return.<br />
<br />
Philpott ended up interviewing more than 150 people to further flesh out the story. "I didn't want to just tell his story," he says. "I wanted to tell about the impact of his captivity was on his whole family." The book-length oral history was published in 2001, with each friend's and family-member's recollections presented in their own words. Inspired in format by a 1982 book titled <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802134106/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=redbulris-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0802134106">"Edie: American Girl,"</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=redbulris-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0802134106" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> which relates from multiple perspectives the story of one of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol">Andy Warhol's</a> constellation of personalities, Philpott's book reads much like the script of a play. Or, as it turns out, a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libretto">libretto</a>.<br />
<br />
"I had tape-recorded everything," says Philpott. "When I was writing the book, I found that the voices were so powerful and poignant and truthful—and the story was so unbelievable—I thought that if I wrote it as a single-narrator, people just wouldn't believe it. It would lose the poignancy of what they were telling me."<br />
<br />
Following the publication of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393342816/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=redbulris-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0393342816">"Glory Denied: The Vietnam Saga of Jim Thompson, America's Longest-Held Prisoner of War"</a> as a book, composer Tom Cipullo contacted the author regarding the possibility of presenting the narrative as an opera.<br />
<br />
While in development, portions of the 2006 work were presented by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Opera">New York City Opera</a> at an annual festival. The Brooklyn College Opera Theater put it on. Then, the <a href="http://www.chelseaopera.org/">Chelsea Opera Company</a> "got some really beautiful talent behind it," says Philpott. "That attracted <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/13/arts/music/13glory.html?_r=0">review in the New York Times</a>." The work was subsequently performed in May 2007 by the Brooklyn College Opera Theater.<br />
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Presented in two acts, the 78-minute opera is written for two sopranos, a tenor, a baritone, and a small orchestra. The males respectively play the younger and older versions of Jim Thompson, while the females depict the younger and older incarnations of his wife, Alyce. Past reviewers note the opera's interwoven narratives, brute-force emotions, and a modernist angularity that isn't afraid to occasionally carry a tune.<br />
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"It was only in the Arlington performance that I heard the entire libretto—the instrumentation didn't overwhelm it for the first time," says Philpott. "I could understand everything that was said. [Cipullo's] choices were all from the book—he had used all these oral histories, the words from these people, who had said them to each other. It was masterful."<br />
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Philpott credits the opera with reawakening interest in his book, which was <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393342816/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=redbulris-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0393342816">re-released as a trade paperback</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=redbulris-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0393342816" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> in 2012. He is currently a <a href="http://www.militaryupdate.com/">syndicated newspaper columnist</a> on military topics.<br />
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Thompson <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/18/us/f-j-thompson-69-longtime-pow-dies.html">died of a heart attack in 2002</a>. He was 69.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-83043500414143291932018-09-28T05:00:00.000-05:002018-09-28T05:00:03.447-05:00Notes from a War, Literature & the Arts Conference<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5IutiOKAiIxlPqoKVrQZaGG0zyJbHlDyRqeyCCsw90tPQJWM-PS5NIltKKNZQnWDC24tNaP9_6MmgKuBUg8ImdkneMwrICUmzh-AZZ8VfEbjo8XiroWyxggZQEm3gu0LYUSodh49E39s/s1600/ben+busch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5IutiOKAiIxlPqoKVrQZaGG0zyJbHlDyRqeyCCsw90tPQJWM-PS5NIltKKNZQnWDC24tNaP9_6MmgKuBUg8ImdkneMwrICUmzh-AZZ8VfEbjo8XiroWyxggZQEm3gu0LYUSodh49E39s/s640/ben+busch.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Author, actor, and former U.S. Marine <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Busch">Benjamin Busch </a>signs a copy of his 2012 memoir <a href="https://amzn.to/2QdPVOr">"Dust to Dust"</a> at the 2018 War, Literature & the Arts conference conducted September 20 and 21 at the U.S. Air Force Academy. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Photo: Jesse Goolsby</span></td></tr>
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<em>Editor's note: This blog post has been cross-posted from <a href="http://www.aimingcircle.com/">The Aiming Circle</a>, where we cover news and tips regarding military-themed writing.</em><br />
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More than 600 academics, students, creators, and others attended the <a href="http://wlajournal.com/Conference2018/">2018 War, Literature & the Arts conference</a> September 20 and 21 on the campus of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force_Academy">U.S. Air Force Academy</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Springs,_Colorado">Colorado Springs</a>, Colo. This year's event coincided with the 30th anniversary of the War, Literature & the Arts Journal, an annual multidisciplinary publication curated by the institution's English faculty, students, and alumni.<br />
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While <a href="https://www.usafa.edu/war-literature-arts-lecture/">an annual lecture series</a> regularly brings literary talent to campus, the full conference tends to appear with the regularity of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigadoon_(film)">Brigadoon</a>. The last such conference, for example, was <a href="https://diplopundit.net/2010/02/16/2010-war-literature-and-the-arts-conference-this-fall/">apparently conducted in 2010</a>.<br />
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The schedule was jam-packed, with three keynote speakers, and four seminar and performance blocks each day. (Two in the morning, and two in the afternoon.) Hosted in the over-21 cadet lounge, a social hour with cash bar was conducted Thursday afternoon. Lunches were "on the economy"—the cadet student union features a small food court, with sandwich, salad, and pizza options.<br />
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While it was impossible to do and see everything and everyone, I hope to illustrate the depth and breadth of the event by re-posting here some observations from my notebook and <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5991024443488082637">Twitter account</a>:<br />
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Julie Saffel, presenting on “Milblogs & Blooks”: “The first wave of war writing is often the most glutinous ...” (Also: author <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colby_Buzzell">Colby Buzzell</a> is “the Blogfather.”) Later told her my <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/p/about-this-blog.html">Red Bull Rising</a> blog was probably a “Third Wave” mil-blog. Not a first-adopter, but not one of the last, either.<br />
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Melissa Parrish, presenting on the work of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Junger">Sebastian Junger</a> (including <a href="https://amzn.to/2DzMd03">"War"</a>): “Junger usefully blurs the line between participant & spectator [slipping between “we” & “I”]—combatant & non-combatant—to usefully interrogate civil-military interactions.”<br />
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One personal highlight of the conference: Getting a chance to use Q&A time to thank USAF Vietnam War veteran <a href="http://mistyvietnam.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Dean_Echenberg.pdf">Dr. Dean F. Echenberg</a> for including the works of 21st century soldier-poets (including my own) in <a href="http://warpoetry.org/">his collection</a>, which he recently donated to <a href="http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/">Harry Ransom Center</a>! Here's a list of such <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/p/collections-all-heat-we-could-carry.html">21st century war poetry</a>.<br />
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Much to my shock, Echenberg's fellow panelist, <a href="https://www.gonzaga.edu/college-of-arts-sciences/faculty-listing/detail/silvestri">Lisa Silvestri</a> of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzaga_University">Gonzaga University's</a> <a href="https://www.gonzaga.edu/college-of-arts-sciences/centers-initiatives/center-for-public-humanities/telling-war">"Telling War" project</a>, then reflected some love back, telling the audience her students really enjoyed <em>my</em> book! (<a href="https://amzn.to/2xx9E4W">"Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Stories from Inside the Wire."</a>) That exemplified the vibe at the conference–lots of inspiring, affirming energy!<br />
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More quotes from the WLA conference: Oliver Jones on “Weaponized Poetics: The Avant-Gardes of the Revolution in Military Affairs": “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_thinking">Design Thinking</a> has become so indoctrinated [in mil-planning], it seems now to be doing the very things that it was intended to disrupt.”<br />
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Not going to share all the WLA18 barroom hilarity & wisdom, but I still think this quote from <a href="https://www.colindhalloran.com/">Colin D. Halloran</a> deserves its own T-shirt: “Whenever I feel down, I read <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias">‘Ozymandias.’</a>” Buy his books <a href="https://amzn.to/2xTpM00">here</a> and <a href="https://amzn.to/2QdmvzV">here</a>.<br />
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Lightning-bolt insight that came to me via <a href="https://www.wabash.edu/academics/profiles/home.cfm?site_folder=english&facname=herzogt">Toby Herzog</a>’s WLA18 talk, “The Thing He Carried & the Story He Told”: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_O%27Brien_(author)">Tim O’Brien</a> was an Radio-Telephone Operator "R.T.O.")—a battalion radio guy, who helped maintain commo logs. A privileged position of blended participation/observation within an organization!<br />
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Speaking of Tim O’Brien at WLA18, <a href="https://www.rolfyngve.com/about1">Rolf Yngve</a> took us on wonderfully nuanced journey, connecting the Magical Realism of O’Brien’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_After_Cacciato">“Going After Cacciato”</a> with the presenter’s real-world work of helping homeless veterans write resumés.<br />
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Elsewhere, in the same presentation regarding “Maps, Charts, Cartography, and Memory in the Battlespace of Fiction, Poetry & Memoir” WLA18 , <a href="https://elizabethtgrayjr.com/biography/">Elizabeth T. Gray Jr.</a> and <a href="https://amzn.to/2QcuWvn">Mark D. Larabee</a> each explored how graphical & textual descriptions of terrain both affect & effect memory ...<br />
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... which led me to remember: In U.S. Army operations orders, we brief weather and terrain under “Situation, Enemy.” At some level, that almost suggests that we grant the terrain <em>agency.</em> That “even the ground is out to get us.”<br />
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Bonus from Mark D. Larabee’s talk: World War I was a “Golden Age of Cartography,” with many technologies coming together: trigonometric survey, multicolor lithography, etc. British teams produced 34+ million maps—365,000 per (linear?) battlefront mile!<br />
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Bonus from poet Elizabeth T. Gray Jr.: A quadranted taxonomy of terrain as either “real”/“imaginary” (think “Ypres” vs. “Mordor”) and “background”/“agented” (bet the latter includes Fangom Forest?). She also mentioned how some Tibetan Buddhists believe that evil spirits can inhabit the ground. Based on that, I later shared with her this poem: <a href="http://magazine.scintillapress.com/leaving-empty.html">"leaving empty."</a><br />
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More Sherpa notes and personal high points from WLA18. Discovering a mutual interest in serious regard for military humor apparent in <a href="https://www.isu.edu/english/about/department-administration/lydia-wilkes/">Lydia Wilkes</a>‘ “Laughing about War with [<a href="http://www.davidabramsbooks.com/bio.htm">David Abrams'</a>] <a href="https://amzn.to/2xTZDxW">‘Fobbit’</a>”!<br />
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Lydia Wilkes quoted U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_A._Milley">Mark Milley</a> in her WLA18 presentation on military humor: “It's not ‘Forever War.’ It’s ‘Forever Train-and-Advise.’” I was reminded of <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/2012/03/sherpatudes.html">Sherpatude No. 26</a>: "Humor is a combat multiplier …"<br />
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Sherpa’s takeaway from Lt. Gen. (USAF, Ret.) <a href="https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/Article/104644/lieutenant-general-christopher-d-miller/">Christopher Miller</a>’s (U.S. Air Force Academy Class of 1980) WLA18 talk “Yesterday at War with Tomorrow: Language as a Strategic Variable”: As a military (and society?), we need to reconcile with “strategic value” as greater or equal to “battlefield valor.”<br />
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Sherpa’s takeaway from <a href="https://www.davidfeisler.com/about-me.html">David Eisler</a>'s WLA18 talk “Influence of the Shift to an All-Volunteer Force on American War Fiction”: As quantifiably compared to Vietnam War novels, OIF/OEF novels may be increasingly generated by non-veterans!<br />
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Sherpa’s takeaway from <a href="https://cchs.gwu.edu/caleb-cage">Caleb Cage‘</a>s WLA18 talk “The All-Volunteer Force and the Civil-Military Divide”: There are 4 binary “master narratives” at play in every OIF/OEF story/debate:<br />
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1. “War of Choice”<br />
2. “The Prez is a Cowboy”<br />
3. “What’s Phase 4?”/“No Plan”<br />
4. “The Surge”</blockquote>
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Sherpa’s takeaway from combat medic (& future <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physician_assistant">physician assistant</a>) John Howell Jr.’s WLA18 talk “Building Resilience through a [pre-deployment!] Literature-based Discussion Program”: Try talking about movies, rather than books! Also: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_(2017_film)">“Logan”</a> (2017) may resonate with troops.<br />
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A full conference schedule is available as a PDF <a href="http://wlajournal.com/conference2018/ConferenceSchedule.pdf">here</a>.<br />
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<em>Want to receive exclusive early-bird notice of military-themed writing opportunities, events, and markets? Join our community of practice for as little as $1 a month! Details here: <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2277611115561858441">www.patreon.com/aimingcircle</a>.</em></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-81895187599148865972018-08-08T08:00:00.000-05:002018-08-08T08:00:01.356-05:00Red Bull Poet Wins Iowa State Lit-Journal Award<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivhbTXzA4jo-4s3a0fIfrKJcJGcI7RwbAjMwVo7wawPlgOvjFIBevL2nMtv7wX0Wwnsw8ISuumxFf2_YLVz-AjzFD1mpV81sg9vwxXBA3NsTUxnIP4be2H8KjVBstZwzwafmeKL3aoPEo/s1600/flyway+logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="604" height="347" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivhbTXzA4jo-4s3a0fIfrKJcJGcI7RwbAjMwVo7wawPlgOvjFIBevL2nMtv7wX0Wwnsw8ISuumxFf2_YLVz-AjzFD1mpV81sg9vwxXBA3NsTUxnIP4be2H8KjVBstZwzwafmeKL3aoPEo/s640/flyway+logo.jpg" width="640" /></a>
Editors of <a href="http://www.flywayjournal.org/">"Flyway: The Journal of Writing & Environment"</a> have <a href="http://flywayjournal.org/news/2018-untold-stories-contest-winner/">announced</a> that poet <a href="http://www.fobhaiku.com/p/about-author.html">Randy Brown</a> is the winner of their 2018 "Untold Stories" contest. The annual competition focuses on amplifying voices from marginalized populations.<br />
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This year's competition called for poetry, creative non-fiction, fiction, and hybrid forms produced by past and present military service members and family.
Brown receives a prize of $250 for two new poems, <a href="http://flywayjournal.org/poetry/2018-untold-stories-contest-winner-a-chaplains-assistant-writes-haiku-and-other-poems-randy-brown/">"Better Hooches and Gardens"</a> and <a href="http://flywayjournal.org/poetry/2018-untold-stories-contest-winner-a-chaplains-assistant-writes-haiku-and-other-poems-randy-brown/">"a chaplain's assistant writes haiku."</a><br />
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A former magazine editor and 20-year retired veteran of the Iowa Army National Guard, Brown embedded as civilian media with his former unit in Afghanistan, May-June 2011. He is author of the 2015 poetry collection <a href="http://amzn.to/2n7zOIg">"Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire."</a><br />
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Writer and U.S. Navy veteran Travis Klempan received an honorable mention for his short story "No Mere Storm."<br />
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You can read Brown's winning poems <a href="http://flywayjournal.org/poetry/2018-untold-stories-contest-winner-a-chaplains-assistant-writes-haiku-and-other-poems-randy-brown/">here</a>, and more of his poetry work <a href="http://www.fobhaiku.com/">here</a>. You can also access the Flyway Journal via Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/Flyway_journal">here</a> and Facebook <a href="https://www.facebook.com/FlywayJournal/">here</a>.<br />
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Based at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_State_University">Iowa State University</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ames,_Iowa">Ames, Iowa</a>, <a href="http://flywayjournal.org/about/">Flyway's mission</a> is to "explore the many complicated facets of the word 'environment'—whether rural, urban, or suburban; whether built or wild—and all its social and political implications."<br />
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"Contests like [<a href="http://flywayjournal.org/news/untold-stories-contest-2018-now-accepting-subs/">'Untold Stories'</a>] and our <a href="http://flywayjournal.org/news/2017-notes-from-the-field-results/">'Notes from the Field'</a> contest in December-January help us find new voices that keep our journal filled with interesting and diverse stories, while defraying some of the costs that come with running a non-profit literary journal," the editors write in their announcement e-mail. "[…] The editorial staff was overwhelmed with the breadth and quality of this year's submissions and enjoyed reading contributions from each author."<br />
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This year, the final judge for the "Untold Stories" effort was poet, memoirist, and anthologist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Turner_(American_poet)">Brian Turner</a>, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Here-Bullet-Brian-Turner-2005-11-01/dp/B01N8XVJ3H/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1519942893&sr=8-2&keywords=here+bullet&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=5b573b8eb8cddba140933b1ce4e04322">Here, Bullet</a>; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Phantom-Noise-Brian-Turner/dp/1882295803/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=11193f8e90e178185cbfaf6fc7f2884d">Phantom Noise</a>; and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/My-Life-Foreign-Country-Memoir/dp/039335184X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=7479eef2f208635d316e6207121c2ad3">My Life as a Foreign Country</a>. The director of the low-residency MFA program at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Nevada_College">Sierra Nevada College</a>, Turner also recently released an <a href="https://amzn.to/2uq2v4X">album of ambient music and poetry</a> as part of the <a href="https://www.interplanetaryacousticteam.com/">Interplanetary Acoustic Team.</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-72239222203045308722018-06-06T05:00:00.000-05:002018-06-09T08:06:17.658-05:00Notes from a Civil-Military Writing Conference<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh23BikBuRvcH_aCn5ktxHwkG_867m_lObrdr7rYSszMBCaDOouFh0dE8Aq-iCXF70NfoctZMmPvoeJL7doTxteH0pqVh3KfJaXhGe71RcGm4HHEHn25lVmyEL8dhBKX5rH8AvZ9ABH14I/s1600/Eric+Chandler+at+theater+event.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh23BikBuRvcH_aCn5ktxHwkG_867m_lObrdr7rYSszMBCaDOouFh0dE8Aq-iCXF70NfoctZMmPvoeJL7doTxteH0pqVh3KfJaXhGe71RcGm4HHEHn25lVmyEL8dhBKX5rH8AvZ9ABH14I/s640/Eric+Chandler+at+theater+event.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Duluth-based author and U.S. Air Force veteran Eric Chandler signs a book after a Q&A discussion at the Spirit of the North Theater, Duluth, Minn., June 2. The free public event was part of a weekend "Bridging the Gap" workshop for military veterans, families, and others who are exploring military topics and themes in their writing. Photo by Andria Williams.</span></td></tr>
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Waves crashed against black rocks on a cold and blustery weekend in Duluth, Minn., while a small group of military writers remained cozy and dry in the <a href="https://fitgers.com/">Fitger's Brewery complex</a>, located along the Lake Superior shore. More than 12 military family and veterans from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa participated in a 2-day workshop last weekend, June 2-3, 2018, exchanging ideas and insights on how to explore stories of change and resilience.<br />
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The "<a href="https://bridgingthegapdlh.wordpress.com/">Bridging the Gap"</a> workshop was made possible through a grant from the <a href="http://aracouncil.org/">Arrowhead Regional Arts Council</a>, thanks to legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. Organizer <a href="https://bridgingthegapdlh.wordpress.com/staff/">Eric Chander</a>, a Duluth-based author, commercial pilot, and U.S. Air Force veteran, says the inspiration for the event came from a 2016 query from colleagues at <a href="https://lakesuperiorwriters.org/">Lake Superior Writers</a>.<br />
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"There are various regional efforts that regularly bring writers of memoir, poetry, and fiction together," Chandler says. "Given that we've been nearly two decades at war, why wouldn't there be a resource to help people document and discuss military themes?"<br />
<br />
Participants included women and men who are veterans of the U.S. Navy, Air Force, Army, and Marines, as well as those who have had friends, family, and co-workers in uniformed service. One woman had previously served in a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabee#Amphibious_Construction_Battalion_(ACB)">U.S. Navy Amphibious Construction Battalion</a>—the "Seabees." Another participant described carving time for writing despite taking care of her five children, while the family awaits the return of her husband, who is currently deployed with a <a href="http://www.148fw.ang.af.mil/">Duluth-based Air National Guard unit</a>. Yet another woman veteran told stories of working as a maintainer on U.S. Air Force <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_II">F-4 "Phantom II" fighters</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_B-1_Lancer">B-1 "Lancer" bombers.</a><br />
<br />
In short, the stories told were far from the testosterone- and adrenalin-fueled military stereotypes that are so often depicted in popular media. One writer noted she was specifically motivated by the "bridging the gap" theme, not only in terms of civil-military frameworks, but in bringing together other communities, audiences, and "tribes."<br />
<br />
In contrast to the foggy and rainy weather outside, the workshop environment was quietly electric. Throughout the weekend, the group took full advantage of the Fitger's Brewery complex—a space that includes conference, hotel, catering, performance, and boutique shopping. Breakfasts and lunches were catered on-site, and discussions of writing and publishing techniques weaved seamlessly between formal classes and lunchtime conversations. Experiences of those present ranged from those who were just starting to explore writing—or who were interested in learning about new forms of writing—to those who were already seeking publication in journals, anthologies, and other venues.<br />
<br />
In a free public event conducted in Fitger's Spirit of the North Theatre on Saturday evening, June 2, four authors of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry read selections from their works, and engaged audience questions about bridging gaps in empathy and understanding that seem to occur between civil and military communities.<br />
<br />
Featured were authors <a href="https://www.amazon.com/M.-L-Doyle/e/B004MJ5LV8/ref=as_li_ss_tl?qid=1526658191&sr=1-2-ent&linkCode=ll2&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=35eeb8e67af9cf26ab9ff38cf62c7ff2">Mary L. Doyle</a> ("The Master Sergeant Lauren Harper" mystery series and others) and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Andria-Williams/e/B00YTNIHNQ/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ll2&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=f7c43956a8e7e502fd25561c3b7c70f7">Andria Williams</a> (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Longest-Night-Novel-Andria-Williams/dp/081298742X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526658546&sr=1-1&keywords=the+longest+night&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=7eb648ce80ee8a1b0458f173f0aedf7c">"The Longest Night"</a>), as well as <a href="https://bridgingthegapdlh.wordpress.com/instructors/">workshop instructors</a> <a href="http://davidchrisinger.com/">David Chrisinger</a> (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/See-Me-Who-Am-Veterans/dp/1944079017/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1526658145&sr=8-1&keywords=see+me+for+who+I+am&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=77dbf5a53218e6ecf3689548ce49bf6d">"See Me for Who I Am"</a>) and <a href="http://www.fobhaiku.com/p/about-author.html">Randy Brown</a> (<a href="http://amzn.to/2n7zOIg">"Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire."</a>)<br />
<br />
"I've seen all sorts of workshop models—everything from 1-day one-shots, to weekly or monthly meetings, to 5-day national conferences," says Brown. "I can honestly say that the inaugural 'Bridging the Gap' event hit a sweet spot—it provided real 'bang for the buck,' with a lot of information and networking in a short period of time. I saw even seasoned practitioners walk away with new tools to try out, and new writers who were charged up and empowered to get started on their own stories. I'd do it again in a heartbeat!"Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-1539431725437832332018-05-01T05:00:00.000-05:002018-05-01T05:00:04.130-05:00Red Bull Poet Finalist in 2018 Darron L. Wright Awards<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0So7dt7AgpnLl1lFmgKVaZN4Xm3ORrpNZ8kHuWw87ZVN2di6BGuawlm08Dlld66reoM5CgRpf9zZl-xH_r6t73RpAw6lFcM62SAsYRdvoUJyDJ6BQ7E-tn_aXRWnXSAsQmMEW4z6CFrk/s1600/sherpa-mugshot-desat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="427" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0So7dt7AgpnLl1lFmgKVaZN4Xm3ORrpNZ8kHuWw87ZVN2di6BGuawlm08Dlld66reoM5CgRpf9zZl-xH_r6t73RpAw6lFcM62SAsYRdvoUJyDJ6BQ7E-tn_aXRWnXSAsQmMEW4z6CFrk/s320/sherpa-mugshot-desat.jpg" width="213" /></a>Randy Brown, author of the 2015 collection <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Welcome-FOB-Haiku-Poems-Inside/dp/0996931708/ref=as_sl_pc_as_ss_li_til?tag=redbulris-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=3a28d2cd56b06a03aed6d5fabe2a215b&creativeASIN=0996931708">"Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire,"</a> was recently named a poetry finalist in the 2018 <a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/colonel-darren-l-wright-contest/#.WTceriMrIy4">Col. Darron L. Wright awards</a>. The award recognizes a new poem that unpacks the phrase "God willing," which is found in multiple languages.<br />
<br />
Brown's poem, <a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/inshallah-manana/#.WuevxSMrIy4">"Inshallah Mañana,"</a> explores the connections of language, as heard with the ears of a citizen-soldier. The soldier first encounters the phrase for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inshallah">"God willing"</a> in his first year of junior high school Spanish, and again in Afghanistan. The phrase is a common one, used in both religious and secular contexts. The poem also mentions a deployment anecdote from "Saber2th," a member of the Iowa Army National Guard's 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment.<br />
<br />
You can read Brown's poem in its entirety <a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/inshallah-manana/#.WuevxSMrIy4">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Administered by the Chicago-based on-line literary journal <a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/">"Line of Advance,"</a> and underwritten by the Blake and Bailey Foundation, the awards commemorate a <a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/colonel-darren-l-wright-contest/#.WTceriMrIy4">U.S. Army leader</a> who was killed in a <a href="http://www.wral.com/iraq-veteran-author-killed-in-bragg-training-exercise/12924797/">September 2013 parachute training accident</a>.<br />
<br />
Other poetry recognized in this year's Wright awards included: <br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/rolling-shrink/#.Wue1GiMrIy4">"No Rolling, Shrink"</a> by Ryan Stovall</li>
<li><a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/maneuvering/#.WuezviMrIy4">"Maneuvering</a>" by Colin Sargent</li>
</ul>
Prose recognitions included: <br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/kind-storm/#.Wu">"Some Kind of Storm"</a> by Travis Klempan</li>
<li><a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/green/#.WueywCMrIy4">"Green"</a> by Brian Braden</li>
<li><a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/octobers-daughter/#.Wue08yMrIy4">"October's Daughter"</a> by Brian Kerg</li>
</ul>
The annual poetry and prose contest is limited to U.S. military veterans, and named in memory of Col. Darron L. Wright. In addition to other assignments, Wright served as battalion operations officer for 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo., with whom he deployed to Iraq from 2003 to 2004. Wright was next assigned as brigade executive officer with 4th Brigade, 4th Inf. Div., Fort Hood, Texas, with whom he deployed to Iraq from 2005 to 2006. He commanded the 1st Battalion, 509th Parachute Inf. Reg. at the Joint Readiness Training Center, Fort Polk, La. in 2007. From 2009 to 2013, Wright was assigned as deputy brigade commander for the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Inf. Div., with whom he deployed to Iraq from 2009 to 2010.<br />
<br />
A graduate of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_War_College">U.S. Naval War College</a>, Wright authored <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1849088128/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1849088128&linkCode=as2&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=GKWJMJ7BE4ONPZGP">"Iraq Full Circle: From Shock and Awe to the Last Combat Patrol in Baghdad and Beyond."</a> in 2012.<br />
<br />
Wright's full biography appears <a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/col-darren-l-wright-bio/">here</a>.<br />
<br />
"Darron L. Wright was a larger than life Soldier’s Soldier. He was a physically imposing, direct, and skilled warrior," the Line of Advance editors wrote when the award was first launched. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
He was also witty, hilarious, generous, kind, and wholly consumed with love for his family. He will certainly be missed but he will never be forgotten. His intellectual curiosity, boundless optimism, and untiring work ethic, allowed him to reach heights he could only dream of as a young boy growing up in Mesquite, Texas. It is in this spirit that the Darron L. Wright Award was created, to inspire fellow military writers and poets to aspire to become better and more accomplished at their craft and at telling their story.</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-73383605942218255832018-04-19T05:00:00.000-05:002018-04-19T05:00:00.201-05:00Iowa Review's Writing Contest for Vets Opens May 1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaGHYcevFnoEG5QpVEam1rmRVWKKfewwoNwaDfBZbYbDHYVJr9LV5wKuVjEmlr5vf-oo0RzC15zghVXFmPiQrmQBLwD31NPxAaNWQJlMUh5XNHoYy9FO-czNS4PTXbWsG3uEOrk0Pz_dA/s1600/sharletvietnamphoto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaGHYcevFnoEG5QpVEam1rmRVWKKfewwoNwaDfBZbYbDHYVJr9LV5wKuVjEmlr5vf-oo0RzC15zghVXFmPiQrmQBLwD31NPxAaNWQJlMUh5XNHoYy9FO-czNS4PTXbWsG3uEOrk0Pz_dA/s1600/sharletvietnamphoto.jpg" width="244" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Jeff Sharlet during service in Vietnam</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The submissions window for a fourth <a href="http://iowareview.uiowa.edu/veteranswritingcontest">Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans</a> writing contest opens Tues., May 1, 2018 and closes June 1, 2018. The contest is open to any service member or veteran<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> writing in any genre, about any subject matter. (Current students, faculty, or staff of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Iowa">University of Iowa</a>, however, are not eligible to enter the contest.)</span><br />
<br />
The contest is hosted by <a href="http://iowareview.uiowa.edu/">The Iowa Review</a> and made possible by the family of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Sharlet_(activist)">Jeff Sharlet</a> (1942–1969), a Vietnam veteran and anti-war writer and activist.<br />
<br />
Unlike the first two iterations of the contest, there is no entry fee for the contest.<br />
<br />
Prize is $1,000 and publication in The Iowa Review. Second place is $750. Up to three runners-up will receive $500 each.<br />
<br />
Entrants should submit an original double-spaced manuscript in any genre (poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction) of up to 20 pages. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, although the editors request timely notification if the work is later accepted elsewhere.<br />
<br />
Submissions may be made either on-line or via postal mail.<br />
<br />
A webpage with full details and specifications for the Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans can be found <a href="http://iowareview.uiowa.edu/veteranswritingcontest">here</a>. A Submittable page for on-line submissions is <a href="https://iowareview.submittable.com/submit">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Historically, this is an extremely competitive contest. <a href="http://www.aimingcircle.com/">The Aiming Circle</a> strongly recommends that potential participants review examples of works previously recognized through this contest. Materials from previous iterations of the Jeff Sharlet Memorial contest have been collected on-line <a href="https://iowareview.org/veterans">here</a>. Or read the previous issues containing Jeff Sharlet contest awardees: <br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview/vol43/iss1/">Iowa Review Spring 2013</a> --- FREE on-line!</li>
<li><a href="https://iowareview.org/issue/volume-45-issue-1-spring-2015">Iowa Review Spring 2015</a></li>
<li><a href="https://iowareview.org/issue/volume-47-issue-1-%E2%80%94-spring-2017">Iowa Review Spring 2017</a></li>
</ul>
Finalists will be selected by the editors of The Iowa Review. A winner will be selected by the guest judge. This year's judge is poet and memoirist Brian Turner, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Here-Bullet-Brian-Turner/dp/1882295552/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1523623980&sr=8-1&keywords=here+bullet&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=a8a315d0c45e691d90f67d3400b572d0">"Here, Bullet"</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/My-Life-Foreign-Country-Memoir/dp/039335184X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=2fa385cfe41e2d1877767adf5b0d7db4">"My Life as a Foreign Country."</a> Individuals with past personal or professional relationship with the judge are not eligible for the contest.<br />
<br />
A Facebook page for The Iowa Review is <a href="http://www.facebook.com/iowareview">here</a>.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-78976166810203084482018-04-17T05:00:00.000-05:002018-04-18T12:26:33.730-05:00Wanted: Women-Warrior-Poets<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLGAfpAeXdTyTmkKl4Q05N7gE0gNBMztQ2ro6gI_ef6PSRIAA3bTygbFTbHPfSxoO_Om62-PzyM7LmNZcTEXXAoki4uSnRRt2D5q7moKEh2Wbg5KGb3Oyf39Wwra7bz-AlRrv05rTudpo/s1600/Drill+sergeant+low-rez.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLGAfpAeXdTyTmkKl4Q05N7gE0gNBMztQ2ro6gI_ef6PSRIAA3bTygbFTbHPfSxoO_Om62-PzyM7LmNZcTEXXAoki4uSnRRt2D5q7moKEh2Wbg5KGb3Oyf39Wwra7bz-AlRrv05rTudpo/s640/Drill+sergeant+low-rez.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">U.S. Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Briana Popp donned her drill sergeant hat during a graduation ceremony at Fort Jackson, S.C. March 8, 2017. Popp earned the titles of Iron Female and Distinguished Honor Graduate and will be a drill sergeant with the 98th Training Division (Initial Entry Training). Popp was the first female Distinguished Honor Graduate in the past six cycles and happened to graduate in March, which is Women's History Month. Coincidentally, Popp's graduation day was International Women's Day as well. Popp is married to active duty drill sergeant, Staff Sgt. Victor James Popp, Echo Company, 2-19 Infantry Battalion, 198th Infantry Brigade, at Fort Benning. (U.S. Army Reserve Photo by Maj. Michelle Lunato.)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Listen, up, Maggots! It's <em>still</em> <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/2018/04/listen-up-maggots-it-national-poetry.htm">National Poetry Month</a>!<br />
<br />
Today's hip-pocket soap box is about how war poetry could be more inclusive!<br />
<br />
U.S. Navy officer and fellow military writer Andrea Goldstein (<a href="https://twitter.com/AN_Goldstein">@AN_Goldstein</a>) asked recently on Twitter:<br />
<blockquote>
In 17 years, why is it that the post- 9/11 "warrior-poets", vets who earn well-deserved critical & popular acclaim are all white men? Women & [People of Color] are writing—and writing beautifully.<br />
<br />
Who gets published? Whose story is considered "credible"? Whose is considered marketable?</blockquote>
Goldstein's query echoes those generated by an on-going personal poetry project of mine, light-heartedly titled the MOA21CWPL—the <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/p/collections-all-heat-we-could-carry.html">"Mother of All 21st Century War Poetry Lists."</a> Of more than 40 individual poetry titles that regard 21st century wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, only a handful are by women who have served in uniform.<br />
<br />
That's not necessarily to say that women and poets of color aren't generating poetry—but that such poetry seems difficult to locate in concentration. In collection. In books of their own.<br />
<br />
Criteria for inclusion on the MOA21CWPL may be skewing the results in favor of male, white, middle-class, officer-centered voices. Potential reasons include, but are not limited to:<br />
<ul>
<li>These listings are "published" (print and/or on-line) collections or anthologies. A typical collection comprises an estimated 50 or more individual poems. Collections and anthologies are "literary" venues that are traditionally white, and are often based on college campuses and in MFA programs.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>They are published as written forms, rather than spoken, video, audio, or other, alternative poetic forms and formats.</li>
</ul>
It may be that women-veterans and other less-heard voices are still generating art—evidenced by work found in "veterans lit" and other journals—but have not yet generated sufficient quantities to collect as books. Or perhaps they just need some encouragement to submit their work to publishers as whole manuscripts.<br />
<br />
Personal anecdote: I didn't realize that I had enough poems for a collection of my own, until someone asked me to put together some of the works I'd sent to Veterans Writing Project and other outlets. A folder of print-outs became a binder; the binder became a manuscript; the manuscript became <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Welcome-FOB-Haiku-Poems-Inside/dp/0996931708/ref=as_sl_pc_as_ss_li_til?tag=redbulris-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=313cc3bb308a34e7b2b3f9b559db2717&creativeASIN=0996931708">"Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire"</a> (2015). I've been gratified at its reception by readers, and hope that it might inspire others to do likewise. Just because I wasn't a grunt, didn't mean that people didn't want to hear my story.<br />
<br />
It may also be that artists are choosing to "publish" their work via means other than printed books or e-books. YouTube videos, for example. Or spoken-word events.<br />
<br />
Still, in the following women-only extract of the MOA21CWPL, only a handful of titles appear to be works by women-veterans: <a href="http://femmesfollesnebraska.tumblr.com/post/55883219156/nicole-goodwin-poet">Nicole Goodwin</a> (U.S. Army, enlisted); <a href="https://karenskolfield.com/">Karen Skolfield</a> (U.S. Army, enlisted); and <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7044216.Farzana_Marie">Farzana Marie</a> (U.S. Air Force, officer). There should be more.<br />
<br />
It's National Poetry Month. As a consumer and reader and sometime poet, I'm pleased that there is so much recognition in the poetry marketplace of wartime narratives other than those involving traditionally "male" domains. (Women-in-war narratives have, after all, <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/2017/04/review-tears-poetry-from-women-in-wwi.html">always been with us</a>, just as war has always been with us.)<br />
<br />
Still, I would like to read more poetry by sailors, soldiers, Marines, and others who have worn the uniform in defense of their countries. And I'm sure I'm not alone.<br />
<br />
(I know of at least one that is <a href="https://middlewestpress.submittable.com/submit">actively pinging for poetry collections</a> of less-heard voices of military experience, regardless of geography.)<br />
<br />
We've been at war for 17 years. Women veterans, fellow citizens, where are your musings of fire?<br />
<br />
<b>*****</b><br />
<br />
<strong>WAR POETRY COLLECTIONS WRITTEN BY WOMEN:</strong><br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0810152142/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0810152142&linkCode=as2&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=4EN3GLFUDDK3YDEO">"Stateside"</a> (2010) and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dots-Dashes-Crab-Orchard-Poetry/dp/080933609X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1507642615&sr=1-1&keywords=jehanne+dubrow&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=f80967b0d64755e8e967a3e329409b2d">"Dots & Dashes"</a> (2017) by <a href="http://jehannedubrow.com/about-jehanne/">Jehanne Dubrow</a>. Poems from the home front.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1880834898/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1880834898&linkCode=as2&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=MV3VMFV3YODCASSQ">"Clamor "</a> (2010) and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Insurgent-Elyse-Fenton/dp/0998053406/ref=as_li_ss_tl?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=d5ca4dd6b7b5647ee8538767fb9191f5">"Sweet Insurgent"</a> (2017) by <a href="http://elysefenton.com/wordpress/">Elyse Fenton</a>. Poems from the home front.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/DRONE-Kim-Garcia/dp/1935218409/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=f281efac4d2abd872c3a7ee05b34fb52">"Drone"</a> (2016) by <a href="https://www.kim-garcia.com/bio/">Kim Garcia</a>. Red Bull Rising review <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/2017/08/war-poetry-book-review-kim-garcia.html">here</a>.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Warcries-Nicole-S-Goodwin/dp/1536919071/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1470940881&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=war+cries+nicole+goodman&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=084af6c53ea4f608431a2981aa599ffb">"Warcries"</a> (2016) by <a href="http://femmesfollesnebraska.tumblr.com/post/55883219156/nicole-goodwin-poet">Nicole Goodwin</a>. Red Bull Rising review <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/2017/01/poetry-book-review-by-nicole-goodwin.html">here</a>.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Unguarded-Lynn-Marie-Houston/dp/099968681X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1521837067&sr=8-1&keywords=lynn+marie+houston&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=2597c69562703327cda4f1f17d818abc">"Unguarded"</a> (2018) by <a href="https://lynnmhouston.com/">Lynn Marie Houston</a>. Poem-letters to a deploying lover. </li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1612519040/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1612519040&linkCode=as2&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=YFM4CQTOBH7I3HRH">"When the Men Go Off to War"</a> (2015) by <a href="http://www.victoriakellybooks.com/bio/">Victoria Kelly</a>. Poems from the home front.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Explosive-Experts-Wife-Wisconsin-Poetry/dp/029931734X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1523913444&sr=8-1&keywords=the+explosive+experts+wife&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=57682664fa0ea7fe9e2ef244458dc0d6">"The Explosive Expert's Wife"</a> (2018) by <a href="http://www.sharalessley.com/about.html">Sara Lessley</a></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Letters-War-Lethe-Farzana-Marie/dp/1622297245/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1523885907&sr=8-4&keywords=farzana+marie&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=cd4feba30b88882932aae736f2ba9bb7">"Letters to War and Lethe"</a> (2014) by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7044216.Farzana_Marie">Farzana Marie</a></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Reaper-Jill-McDonough/dp/1938584260/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1523913021&sr=8-1&keywords=reaper+jill+mcdonough&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=89f146a596bdd36ed2ce3a88108211a6">"Reaper"</a> (2017) by <a href="http://www.jillmcdonough.com/about/">Jill McDonough</a></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-Works-Hard-Dunya-Mikhail/dp/0811216217/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1524058248&sr=8-3&keywords=dunya&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=5a97b2862b650a6b7a74abff01d97909">"The War Works Hard"</a> (2005) and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Iraqi-Nights-New-Directions-Paperbook/dp/0811222861/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=dc790c4659781cbe49f3cec6d8183428">"The Iraqi Nights"</a> (2014) by <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/dunya-mikhail">Dunya Mikhail</a>. Iraqi-American poet, born in Baghdad.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Married-after-Iraq/dp/163534445X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521837142&sr=1-1&keywords=abby+e.+murray&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=8e135d535e9c8888b19b9d0d2df3e641">"How to Be Married After Iraq"</a> (2018) and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Quick-Draw-Poems-Soldiers-Wife/dp/1622290119/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1521837158&sr=1-5&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=eea120c8e6903446b9b04e82f16d7e65">"Quick Draw: Poems from a Soldier's Wife"</a> (2013) by <a href="http://www.abbyemurray.com/">Abby E. Murray</a>. Poems from the home front.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Warrior-Mothers-Story-Son-War-ebook/dp/B001SK4K66/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1461791345&sr=1-1&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=1f90802fcdf0ff475bf2ebe9431a7781">"The Warrior: A Mother's Story of a Son at War"</a> (2009) and <a href="https://give.clackamas.edu/voices">"Voices of the Guard"</a> (2010) by <a href="http://francesrichey.com/content/author.asp?id=Biography">Frances Richey</a></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Frost-Low-Areas-Karen-Skolfield/dp/0978612787/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=e89b19da16d8fa99b53ba6f1ddbc31ca">"Frost in the Low Areas"</a> (2016) by <a href="https://karenskolfield.com/">Karen Skolfield</a></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://amzn.to/2dL2XPM">"Uniform"</a> (2016) and <a href="https://amzn.to/2qauVO8">"Permanent Change of Station"</a> (2018) by <a href="https://lisastice.wordpress.com/about-2/">Lisa Stice</a>. Poems from the home front. Red Bull Rising review of "Uniform" <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/2016/10/poetry-book-review-by-lisa-stice.html">here</a>.</li>
</ul>
<strong>ANTHOLOGIES FEATURING WAR POETRY BY WOMEN</strong><strong>:</strong><br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Consequence Magazine's <a href="http://www.consequencemagazine.org/volumes/volume-10-anniversary-issue-spring-2018/">10th Anniversary edition</a> (2018) focuses on women's writing.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1908487011/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1908487011&linkCode=as2&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=SSTG7IT372OSHQAI">"Enduring Freedom: An Afghan Anthology"</a> (2011; pending re-release August 2015). Poems from U.K. military service members, veterans, and family members.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0985981881/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0985981881&linkCode=as2&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=W6434SFH3AADGYTH">"Load Poems Like Guns: Women's Poetry from Herat, Afghanistan"</a> (2015) translated by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7044216.Farzana_Marie">Farzana Marie</a></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0091946646/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0091946646&linkCode=as2&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=UK3FMA5YRBACUOF3">"Heroes: 100 Poems from the New Generation of War Poets"</a> (2011). Poems from U.K. military service members, veterans, and family members.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M7RHNSE//ref=as_li_ss_tl?coliid=I1SLADYO3GZ8P4&colid=1YHCZGJ7BO39I&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=372c12c335e952481f51d0f5cda0ebad">"Homefront"</a> (2016) by <a href="https://www.bryonydoran.com/bio">Bryony Doran</a>, <a href="http://jehannedubrow.com/about-jehanne/">Jehanne Dubrow</a>, <a href="http://elysefenton.com/wordpress/">Elysse Fenton</a>, <a href="http://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/category/isabel-palmer">Isabel Palmer</a>. A four-poet collection comprising the works of two mothers of British soldiers serving in Afghanistan (Doran and Palmer); a U.S. Navy spouse (Dubrow's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0810152142/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0810152142&linkCode=as2&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=4EN3GLFUDDK3YDEO">"Stateside"</a>); and a U.S. Army spouse (Fenton's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Clamor-CSU-Poetry-Elyse-Fenton/dp/1880834898/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ll1&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=c3f932367dba980c880f159556ccb14f">"Clamor"</a>).</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Veterans Writing Project's <a href="https://odarkthirtydotorg.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/v-4-2_web_text.pdf">"O-Dark-Thirty" journal Winter 2016</a>, Vol. 4, No. 2 focuses on women's writing. Available FREE as PDF at link <a href="https://odarkthirtydotorg.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/v-4-2_web_text.pdf">here</a>.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0991386167/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0991386167&linkCode=as2&tag=redbulris-20&linkId=GA6C5TGZFZSQLN7K">"Washing the Dust from Our Hearts: Poetry and Prose from the Afghan Women's Writing Project"</a> (2015). Works in English from participants in the program's videoconference workshops.</li>
</ul>
<strong><i>FREE!</i> ON-LINE MIL-POETRY JOURNALS:</strong><br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://collateraljournal.com/">"Collateral"</a> magazine. Stories from perspectives of those affected by others' military service.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="https://www.deadlywriterspatrol.org/">"The Deadly Writers Patrol"</a> journal</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.lineofadvance.org/">"Line of Advance"</a> journal</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Military Experience & the Arts' <a href="http://militaryexperience.org/blue-streak-a-journal-of-military-poetry-vol-1/">"Blue Streak"</a> and <a href="http://militaryexperience.org/as-you-were-vol-1/#">"As You Were"</a></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Veterans Writing Project's <a href="http://o-dark-thirty.org/the-review-2/">"O-Dark-Thirty"</a></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://www.wlajournal.com/">"War, Literature and the Arts"</a> journal</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="https://wifeandwar.wordpress.com/">"Wife and War"</a> poetry blog by memoirist <a href="https://wifeandwar.wordpress.com/about/">Amalie Flynn</a></li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
</ul>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5991024443488082637.post-16245286451027489202018-04-11T05:00:00.000-05:002018-04-11T06:15:02.453-05:00Sun Tzu & Sneetches: New War Poetry Now on Sale!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In her second electric collection, <a href="https://amzn.to/2qauVO8">"Permanent Change of Station,"</a> poet, mother, and U.S. Marine Corps spouse Lisa Stice lovingly interrogates and illuminates life in a modern military family. The <a href="https://amzn.to/2qauVO8">96-page trade paperback</a> is available for $11.99 U.S. purchase via Amazon and other booksellers worldwide. A <a href="https://amzn.to/2JxFP8I">$5.99 U.S. Amazon Kindle edition</a> is available as well. Via Amazon's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/ep-landing-page">"MatchBook" program</a>, a bonus Kindle copy is available FREE for instant download to purchasers of the print edition.<br />
<br />
Here's what people are saying about Lisa Stice's "Permanent Change of Station": <br />
<blockquote>
"Lisa Stice's new poetry collection [...] is spare and lovely. Shadowed by deployments and military moves, Stice demonstrates how the smallest, most tenuous moments in life can illustrate a family’s larger joys and fears."<br />
<strong><em>—<a href="http://www.siobhanfallon.com/author.html">Siobhan Fallon</a>, author of <a href="https://amzn.to/2ExD9nD">You Know When the Men Are Gone</a> and <a href="https://amzn.to/2qmp08A">The Confusion of Languages</a></em></strong><br />
<br />
"By using a language [...] that plays philosophically with the meanings of military terminologies, Lisa Stice produces a cartography of domestic space that is riddled with loss. [...] Stice celebrates the moms and kids who 'hold down the fort' back home, expressing awe at all the ways they find to survive and thrive."<br />
<strong><em>—<a href="https://lynnmhouston.com/">Lynn Marie Houston</a>, author of the poetry collections <a href="https://amzn.to/2JxMOyi">Unguarded</a> and <a href="https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/the-mauled-keeper/">The Mauled Keeper</a></em></strong><br />
<br />
"The experiences [Lisa Stice] writes of—the losses and realizations—are part of a military life that often feels simultaneously impenetrable and inescapable. Absence, isolation, and relocation become habit we don’t often read about, because part of us breaks in every move we do not choose, every uncertainty we are told to sustain […]"<br />
<strong><em>—<a href="http://www.abbyemurray.com/about.html">Abby E. Murray</a>, author of the poetry collections <a href="https://amzn.to/2Hr6LGg">How to Be Married After Iraq</a> and Quick Draw: Poems from a Soldier’s Wife</em></strong></blockquote>
Together with her toddler daughter and little dog Seamus, Stice explores the in-betweens of separation and connection, and the quest for finding one's place in the world—whether child or adult.<br />
<br />
Stice's signature style is open and accessible—this is poetry for people who think they don't read poetry.<br />
<br />
Frequently, for example, she borrows phrases from texts she finds readily at hand around the house, including quotations from Sun Tzu's "The Art of War," and Dr. Seuss's "The Sneetches."<br />
<br />
In another point of entry, the family's beloved Norwich Terrier often appears as a sentry, companion, and guide.<br />
<br />
In one poem, "The Dog Speaks," Stice writes: <br />
<blockquote>
He says, <em>I can't leave.<br />
This place is mine—<br />
I claimed all the trees</em>.<br />
<br />
I say, <em>There will be more.<br />
After all the temporary homes<br />
and all the stops in between,<br />
<br />
this whole country<br />
will by yours.</em></blockquote>
<a href="https://lisastice.wordpress.com/about/">Lisa Stice</a> is the author of a previous poetry collection, <a href="http://amzn.to/2e8q9IE">"Uniform"</a> (<a href="http://aldrichbookpublishing.blogspot.com/">Aldrich Press</a>, 2016), in which she explores her experiences as a military wife. A former high school teacher, she volunteers as a mentor with the <a href="https://veteranswriting.org/mentors/">Veterans Writing Project</a>; as an associate poetry editor with <a href="https://1932quarterly.wordpress.com/">1932 Quarterly</a>; and as a contributor for <a href="https://militaryspousebookreview.com/">The Military Spouse Book Review</a>. She received a BA in English literature from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Mesa_University">Mesa State College</a> (now Colorado Mesa University), Grand Junction, Colo., and an MFA in creative writing from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Alaska_Anchorage">University of Alaska, Anchorage</a>. While it is difficult to say where home is, she says, Stice currently lives in North Carolina with her husband, her daughter, and Seamus, a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwich_Terrier">Norwich Terrier</a>.<br />
<br />
For a <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/">Red Bull Rising</a> review of Stice's previous book, click <a href="http://www.redbullrising.com/2016/10/poetry-book-review-by-lisa-stice.html">here</a>.<br />
<br />
For a "5 Questions" <a href="http://www.aimingcircle.com/">Aiming Circle</a> interview with poet Lisa Stice, click <a href="http://www.aimingcircle.com/2017/10/5-questions-with-poet-lisa-stice.html">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.middlewestpress.com/">Middle West Press LLC</a> is a Central Iowa-based editor and publisher of non-fiction, fiction, journalism, and poetry. As an independent micro-press, we publish one to four titles annually. Our projects are often inspired by the people, places, and history of the American Midwest, as well as other essential stories.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0