The Soldier S Poem Book

Our freedom is not free Go to any cemetery and see Look for any serviceman's grave See what price he had to pay Freedom comes at a high cost. Men and women are willing to fight and die for our great country, and they encounter some of the greatest emotional struggles of all. Soldiers have families and loved ones they miss dearly while miles away in the heart of battle. Soldiers have lost friends while fighting. Soldiers have formed lifelong friendships with those that make it through the battle with them. Here, in A Soldier's Poem Book, readers will gain insight into the heart of mind of some of our country's finest, the ones willing to pay the price for the freedom we enjoy. Many times, long after the battles end, these are the thoughts of a dedicated soldier, husband, father, and God-fearing man. These pages are a reminder that many have served and many more will serve to keep our country strong under God.

The astonishing, powerful debut by the winner of a 2016 Whiting Writers' Award WHEREAS her birth signaled the responsibility as mother to teach what it is to be Lakota therein the question: What did I know about being Lakota? Signaled panic, blood rush my embarrassment. What did I know of our language but pieces? Would I teach her to be pieces? Until a friend comforted, Don’t worry, you and your daughter will learn together. Today she stood sunlight on her shoulders lean and straight to share a song in Diné, her father’s language. To sing she motions simultaneously with her hands; I watch her be in multiple musics. —from “WHEREAS Statements” WHEREAS confronts the coercive language of the United States government in its responses, treaties, and apologies to Native American peoples and tribes, and reflects that language in its officiousness and duplicity back on its perpetrators. Through a virtuosic array of short lyrics, prose poems, longer narrative sequences, resolutions, and disclaimers, Layli Long Soldier has created a brilliantly innovative text to examine histories, landscapes, her own writing, and her predicament inside national affiliations. “I am,” she writes, “a citizen of the United States and an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, meaning I am a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation—and in this dual citizenship I must work, I must eat, I must art, I must mother, I must friend, I must listen, I must observe, constantly I must live.” This strident, plaintive book introduces a major new voice in contemporary literature.

Written with exceptional beauty throughout, Soldier stands and delivers an eloquent, heart-breaking, hilarious and hopeful, witness to the beginnings of a truly extraordinary, American life.

Grouped under such headings as: heroism, fear/death, daily thoughts/living (Italy, Belgium, western and northwestern Europe, Germany), dreams, hope, love, peace/freedom, and "afterwards."

At age nineteen, Hugh Martin withdrew from college for 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.

Having been medically released from the Canadian Armed Forces after 33 years of service, I found myself dealing with the realities of no longer being able to work, a continually deteriorating state of health, and a significant amount of time on my hands. These poems were an outlet for my pent-up emotions. Importantly, these poems were written while in a deep depression and with heavy substance us/abuse. They are raw, abstract at times, mostly unedited and get dark at the end. Read them as I wrote them. That is where my mind was at the time.

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Wuppertal, course: Introduction to Literary Studies, language: English, abstract: Two of the most famous ‘war poets’ of the First World War are Wilfred Owen and Rupert Brooke. At first glance both poets seem to have many similarities: Both, Owen and Brooke, were civilians, who joined the army at a young age, both wrote poetry inspired by their war experiences, and both died during the war. But looking at the content of their poems the differences are significant, almost as if both poets witnessed different wars: While Brooke’s poems glorify war and the heroic deeds of the soldiers, Owen’s poetry tries to show the reality of war and trench warfare. As both poets are examples for the changing perception of war in early and later ‘war poetry’, so are their poems "The Soldier" and "Dulce et Decorum est" examples of how those different mentalities are represented in poetry. This paper focuses especially on the form of both poems, as both use the form of the sonnet to achieve, but with very different results.