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The Stick Soldiers Hugh Martin

The Stick Soldiers By Hugh Martin

The Stick Soldiers by Hugh Martin


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Summary

Iraq war veteran's Poulin Prize-winning debut poetry collection explores war, masculinity, and return to civilian life. Introduction by Cornelius Eady.

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The Stick Soldiers Summary

The Stick Soldiers by Hugh Martin

...thoughtful recollections, scary memories, articulate reflections, and the resolve of a man who has been there.--Publishers Weekly At age nineteen, Hugh Martin withdrew from college when his National Guard unit was activated for a deployment to Iraq. After training at Fort Bragg, Martin spent 2004 in Iraq as the driver of his platoon sergeant's Humvee. He participated in hundreds of missions including raids, conducting foot patrols, clearing routes for IEDs, disposing of unexploded ordnance, and searching thousands of Iraqi vehicles. These poems recount his time in basic training, his preparation for Iraq, his experience withdrawing from school, and ultimately, the final journey to Iraq and back home to Ohio. Hugh Martin holds an MFA from Arizona State University. He is a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

The Stick Soldiers Reviews

The Stick Soldiers reveal[s] Iraq in all its real and imagined dangers in a language that is somber, angry, deeply reflective, but also intensely, if not darkly humorous. The collection is an approachable, necessary volume of poems about what it was like to prepare for war, serve in Iraq, and return to Ohio 'a body / much less / without the plated-vest, the ammo.' -M.K. Sukach, War Literature & the Arts The Stick Soldiers is a journey you don't want to miss. Especially if you care about the soldiers our country sent to war and if you want to help them come home. -Bookscover2cover The Stick Soldiers deserves a wide audience. It has much to tell us about the cost of war on our veterans. - Rain Taxi As America's withdrawal from Iraq fades amidst more recent events, it becomes even more important to read books like The Stick Soldiers to give voice and image to just what contemporary war constitutes for soldiers like Martin. --Mark Allen Jenkins, American Microreviews and Interviews Martin's book, The Stick Soldiers, released in 2013, is filled with this kind of comedie noire, a knowing authority which seems deeply suspicious not only of its own attempts to reduce the war to language but also of the capacity of its civilian audience to comprehend this language.-Los Angeles Review of Books

About Hugh Martin

Hugh Martin is a graduate of Muskingum University and completed his MFA at Arizona State in May, 2012. He served six years in the Army National Guard as an M1A1 Tanker and spent 11 months in Iraq. His poetry centers on the narratives that crossed his path as a soldier, with a goal to make each section vivid and strong enough to give the reader a clear idea of what each soldier is like as a human being. Martin's work has appeared in CONSEQUENCE Magazine, Mid-American Review, Nashville Review, and is forthcoming in Gargoyle, Third Coast, and the American Poetry Review. His chapbook, So, How Was the War? (Kent State UP, 2010) was published by the Wick Poetry Center, and was selected as part of the 7th Avenue Streetscape Series in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. In the summer of 2011 he taught introductory creative writing classes at the National University of Singapore. He will be a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University in the fall of 2012.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents


M-16A2 Assault Rifle 5

I.
Spring in Jalula 7
The Stick Soldiers 9
The Global War on Terrorism 10
The Jalula Market 11
Responding to an Explosion in Qarah Tappah 13
First Engagement 14

II.
Nights in the Quadrilateral Pool of Sawdust and Sweat 17
The Summer of Crawling 19
The Range 20
Basic Training 21
Full Moon, M2 Machine Gun 22
Tomorrow, We Go Up North 23
Four-Letter Word 24

III.
Observation Post 29
Raid 31
Nocturne, Traffic Control Point 32
Friday Night, FOB Cobra 33
Pictures of the War 36
After Curfew 37
The Rocket 38
Causeway Overwatch 39
Desert Nocturne 40

IV.
The War Was Good, Thank You 42
Demobilization 44
Home From Iraq, Larry's Tavern 45
Barracks Dream 46
Firework Elegy 47
First Snow 48

V.
Doc's Kill 50
Ways of Looking at an IED 51
Green Dreams 53
Site 947: A Situation Report 54
The Burn Pit at FOB Cobra 55
This Morning, We Carry Body Bags 57
Nocturne with Sandstorm 58

VI.
Nostos: Quinn's Bar, Cleveland Heights 60

Additional information

CIN1938160061G
9781938160066
1938160061
The Stick Soldiers by Hugh Martin
Used - Good
Paperback
BOA Editions, Limited
20130418
88
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - The Stick Soldiers