This Writing Life

Episode 12 - Brian Turner Part 4

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In the final part of my epic conversation with the American soldier-poet Brian Turner, our attention turned to the question: does writing help confront trauma and the violence he has witnessed and indeed participated in. 
----more----Other subjects include: 
  • 'Sergeant Turner' vs Brian Turner: Poet
  • the part of Turner and his colleagues that died in Iraq
  • the rise of ISIS in Iraq
  • how do you live with the experiences he has had
  • how do I be happy
  • love and a reading about his wife from My Life as a Foreign Country
  • transitioning from war poet to poet
  • can you leave the war behind? 
  • trying to understand the 'enemy'
  • the time Turner was almost killed
  • writing about torture and Turner's complicity with this
  • can poems change people's attitude to torture, Guantanamo etc
  • Iraq and the news cycle
  • art, empathy, sharing and understanding
  • 'The historians are wrong. We have decades ahead of us, just with Iraq'
  • why Sweden has taken more Iraqi refugees than US
  • is Turner a political writer?
  • 'There could be a lot more troubling of the water'
  • Turner on the future of Iraq
  • on returning to Baghdad in 2012
    • And then, finally, we headed to lunch. 


    ...more
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    This Writing LifeBy James Kidd
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