Brian Turner's Poems

The words that Brian Turner uses in his writings are so descriptive and it seems that he likes to use symbolism throughout the different poems we read. In his poem The Hurt Locker, Turner is describing the only thing that soldiers have left to hold on to after everything is the hurt, physically and emotionally. The last line of this poem, "Open the hurt locker and learn how rough men come hunting for souls" really takes me by surprise. Reading that men are hunting for the souls of other men is not a description you hear every day about soldiers in the war. While we know that they are there to fight for and defend their country, never do we seem to realize what they are taking away from their enemies. In Turner's poem R&R, he seems to be forcing his mind to think of other things to distract him from the fact that he is so worn out. Describing a girl and being with her escapes what he is actually going through. Turner also seems to take what the soldiers are actually doing and attempt to turn it into a more pleasurable experience by describing them being on the beach playing volleyball. In What Every Soldier Should Know, I interpreted some of Turner's statements as something with much bigger meaning than what you would think. "Always enter a home with your right foot; the left is for cemeteries and unclean places" seems to me like Turner is explaining that when entering a home during war, you should always be as prepared as possible. Since majority of the population is right-handed, your right foot would appear to be the dominant foot, and stepping into to an unfamiliar home with it first shows that you must have control and power. When he explains that some men earn eighty dollars to attack you, five thousand to kill, this is something that to me at least was not really seen in wars before today. Just like a lot of things in society, money seems to be the way to get things done nowadays.