LEWISTON – Brian Turner, author of “Here, Bullet,” will read from his work at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Bates College’s Benjamin Mays Center, 95 Russell St. The public is invited to attend free of charge.

“Here, Bullet” is a poetry collection that won the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award from Alice James Books in Farmington. As part of that award, his book was just published by Alice James Books, a nonprofit cooperative poetry press. Many of the poems were written while he was serving in Iraq.

Turner earned a master’s degree from the University of Oregon before serving for seven years in the U.S. Army. He was an infantry team leader for a year in Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. Previously, he deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina with the 10th Mountain Division in 1999-2000.

Publishers Weekly describes Turner’s work as “straightforward and direct. It highlights the violence and death of the war in a manner little seen elsewhere.”

Turner’s poetry has been published in journals, including Poetry Daily and the Georgia Review, and in the “Voices in Wartime: The Anthology,” released in conjunction with a feature-length documentary film of the same name. He lives in Fresno, Calif.

Turner’s reading is co-sponsored by the English department and Maine Chapter 001 of Veterans for Peace.