{"id":224,"date":"2019-07-17T18:18:01","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T18:18:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wcsu.wpengine.com\/news-archives\/brianturner-reading\/"},"modified":"2019-07-17T18:18:01","modified_gmt":"2019-07-17T18:18:01","slug":"brianturner-reading","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/news-archives\/brianturner-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"2014 Acclaimed poet Brian Turner to read his work at WCSU"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"ImageDANBURY, CONN. <\/strong>\u2014 U.S. Army veteran and award-winning poet Brian Turner<\/a> will read from his work at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 3, 2014, <\/strong>in Alumni Hall on the Western Connecticut State University<\/a> Midtown campus, 181 White St. in Danbury. The reading will be free and open to the public. Turner\u2019s appearance at Western is sponsored by the university\u2019s Master of Fine Arts in Creative and Professional Writing<\/a> program and the School of Arts and Sciences<\/a>. <\/p>\n

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Dr. Brian Clements, coordinator of Western\u2019s M.F.A. program, said, \u201cBrian Turner is one of the most important writers to come out of military service in the Iraq War. His first book of poems, \u2018Here, Bulle<\/a>t,\u2019 in many ways is the Iraq War\u2019s equivalent to the Vietnam War\u2019s \u2018The Things They Carried\u2019 by Tim O\u2019Brien. His current memoir, \u2018My Life as a Foreign Country<\/a>,\u2019 is another important document of what it means to experience war and to deal with its aftermath.\u201d<\/p>\n

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According to Turner\u2019s website, he earned a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Oregon before serving for seven years in the U.S. Army. He was an infantry team leader for a year in Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. Prior to that, he deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina with the 10th Mountain Division in 1999-2000. His poems and memoir are based on his experiences during these deployments.<\/p>\n

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As a brutally honest retelling of his military service, Turner\u2019s work has been heralded by reviewers. A review in The New Yorker stated, \u201cAs a war poet, [Brian Turner] sidesteps the classic distinction between romance and irony, opting instead for the surreal.\u201d The New York Times Book Review wrote, \u201cThe day of the first moonwalk, my father\u2019s college literature professor told his class, \u2018Someday they\u2019ll send a poet, and we\u2019ll find out what it\u2019s really like.\u2019 Turner has sent back a dispatch from a place arguably more incomprehensible than the moon \u2014 the war in Iraq \u2014 and deserves our thanks \u2026\u201d <\/p>\n

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Turner\u2019s work has yielded numerous literary awards. Among them: a 2009 Fellow Award from United States Artists, a 2009 Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship, a 2008 Charity Randall Citation, a 2007 NEA Literature Fellowship in Poetry, the 2007 Poets\u2019 Prize for \u201cHere, Bullet,\u201d a Maine Literary Award in Poetry, a Northern California Book Award in Poetry, a PEN Center USA \u201cBest in the West\u201d Literary Award in Poetry, a Sheila Margaret Motten Award from the New England Poetry Club, a Lannan Literary Fellowship and a Beatrice Hawley Award.<\/p>\n

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While many have credited Turner\u2019s poem, \u201cThe Hurt Locker,\u201d published in his \u201cHere, Bullet\u201d anthology as the inspiration for the 2009 Academy Award-winning film of the same name, in fact the phrase \u201churt locker\u201d dates back to the Vietnam War era and is an expression frequently used in combat. While Turner\u2019s prose did not inspire the film<\/a>, it has contributed greatly to the public\u2019s understanding of the atrocities of war. A review in The Progressive reveals, \u201c\u2018Here, Bullet\u2019 conveys the pain, the sadness, the fear, the loneliness of armed conflict with eloquent words and vivid descriptions. In a few words he can conjure up the dramatic aftermath of a bomb in a market place that most newspapers can\u2019t capture in a dozen paragraphs.\u201d <\/p>\n

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For more information, contact the Office of University Relations at (203) 837-8486.<\/p>\n

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Western Connecticut State University offers outstanding faculty in a range of quality academic programs. Our diverse university community provides students an enriching and supportive environment that takes advantage of the unique cultural offerings of Western Connecticut and New York. Our vision: To be an affordable public university with the characteristics of New England\u2019s best small private universities.<\/em><\/p>\n

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