An award-winning poet and former infantry team leader in Iraq, Brian Turner combines his devastating recollections as "Sergeant Turner" with his visions of the experiences of generations of warriors in his family-and even those of the enemy-in a work of profound understanding and shocking beauty.
An award-winning poet and former infantry team leader in Iraq, Brian Turner combines his devastating recollections as "Sergeant Turner" with his visions of the experiences of generations of warriors in his family-and even those of the enemy-in a work of profound understanding and shocking beauty.
An award-winning poet and former infantry team leader in Iraq, Brian Turner combines his devastating recollections as “Sergeant Turner” with his visions of the experiences of generations of warriors in his family—and even those of the enemy—in a work of profound understanding and shocking beauty.
“"Violence . . . mingles by metaphor with dreams, eroticism,history, classical poetry, until the borders between individualsand worlds melt away."”
"Turner's poetic gaze irradiates his world... [His] memoir is beautiful, electrifying and full of pain." -- Roxana Robinson - Washington Post "Violence ... mingles by metaphor with dreams, eroticism, history, classical poetry, until the borders between individuals and worlds melt away." -- George Packer - The New Yorker "Brian Turner has given us not so much a memoir as a meditation, rendered with grace and wit and wisdom. If you want to know what modern soldiers see when they look at their world, read this book." -- Larry Heinemann, author of Paco's Story, winner of the National Book Award "Moments of candor and existential longing break open to expose a world of truths...Brian Turner is a born storyteller." -- Yusef Komunyakaa, author of Neon Vernacular, winner of the Pulitzer Prize "The psychological consequences of war are movingly portrayed... [a] standout." -- Publishers Weekly "One of the most important memoirs to come out of the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan... exceptional." -- Caleb Cage - The Rumpus
Brian Turner is the author of the memoir My Life as a Foreign Country and the poetry collections Here, Bullet and Phantom Noise. He directs the low-residency MFA at Sierra Nevada College. The Kiss was conceived with his late wife, the acclaimed poet Ilyse Kusnetz, to whom it is dedicated. It was developed from a series he curated for Guernica.
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