By Jodi Hausen,Staff Writer

FARMINGTON – Like the cover of his book – a combat soldier standing in a wide, barren landscape – Brian Turner’s war poetry is vast, yet at times, the Iraq War veteran’s verses are intimate.

Nearly all the poems in “Here, Bullet,” Turner’s premiere collection of published poetry, were written while he was serving in Iraq, he told his publishers at Alice James Books in Farmington recently. When given time to sleep after a mission, he would often work on his poems or write in his journal by the light of a red-lensed flashlight to avoid disturbing other soldiers, he said.

After earning a master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Oregon, Turner served for seven years in the Army deploying first to Bosnia-Herzegovina with the 10th Mountain Division in 1999. He most recently served for a year in Iraq as an infantry team leader for the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team.

In his “harrowing, first-person account of the Iraq War,” Turner “writes powerfully affecting poetry of witness, exceptional for its beauty, honesty and skill,” his publisher said in a statement. His book, winner of the Beatrice Hawley Award, received favorable reviews in The New Yorker and New York Times Book Review recently.

His book “is more sandy than muddy, has plenty of blood, and offers its share of sweetness, in the form of date palms, chai tea, and off-hours prostitutes observed through the lenses of high-powered binoculars,” wrote Dana Goodyear in a recent review in The New Yorker.

Turner, who lives in Fresno, Calif., will be appearing in three locations this week, ending his Maine tour at the University of Maine at Farmington.

In Farmington, the event initiates Mantor Library’s reading program “On Our Minds: War, In Words,” providing a venue for meaningful dialogue and self-reflection about literature, according to a UMF press release. This year’s theme of war will feature three other titles: “The Art of War” by Sun-tzu, “Cold Mountain” by Charles Frazier and “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card.