Slow war

Summary/Review: "Writing in the tradition of John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields, " Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est, " and Kevin Powers's "Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting, " Benjamin Hertwig's debut collection of poetry, Slow War, is at once an account of contemporary warfare and a personal journey of loss and the search for healing. A century after the First World War, Hertwig presents the personal cost of war in poems such as "In Flanders/Afghanistan, " and "Food Habits of Coyotes, as Determined by the Examination of Stomach Contents, " and the potential for healing in unlikely places in "A Poem Is Not Guantanamo Bay." This collection provides no easy answers--Hertwig looks at the war in Afghanistan with the unflinching gaze of a soldier and the sustained attention of a poet. In his accounting of warfare, the personal becomes political. While these poems inhabit both experimental and traditional forms, the breakdown of language channels a descent into violence and an ascent into a future that no longer feels certain, where history and trauma are forever intertwined. Hertwig reminds us that remembering war is a political act and that writing about war is a way we remember."--