{"title":"Hugh Martin","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHugh Martin, an Iraq War veteran, is the author of \u003ci\u003eIn Country \u003c\/i\u003e(BOA Editions, Ltd., 2018), \u003ci\u003eThe Stick Soldiers \u003c\/i\u003e(BOA Editions, Ltd., 2013), and\u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan\u003e So, How Was the War?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e (Kent State UP, 2010). \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e His work has appeared in \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2021\/12\/memorial-highway-signs-soldiers-meaning\/621011\/\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2021\/12\/memorial-highway-signs-soldiers-meaning\/621011\/\u0026amp;source=gmail\u0026amp;ust=1750292857092000\u0026amp;usg=AOvVaw0jwsGIcPgwZrtpOHWD0X42\" target=\"_blank\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2016\/02\/01\/50-cal-gunner\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2016\/02\/01\/50-cal-gunner\u0026amp;source=gmail\u0026amp;ust=1750292857092000\u0026amp;usg=AOvVaw11FUHBXt3sE50E9NunTL6h\" target=\"_blank\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/archive.nytimes.com\/atwar.blogs.nytimes.com\/2012\/08\/27\/learning-a-language-and-relearning-a-country\/\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/archive.nytimes.com\/atwar.blogs.nytimes.com\/2012\/08\/27\/learning-a-language-and-relearning-a-country\/\u0026amp;source=gmail\u0026amp;ust=1750292857092000\u0026amp;usg=AOvVaw1jepP4Lr63bg-iIP2cy4ht\" target=\"_blank\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.gq.com\/story\/lebron-james-rival-ohio-iraq\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.gq.com\/story\/lebron-james-rival-ohio-iraq\u0026amp;source=gmail\u0026amp;ust=1750292857092000\u0026amp;usg=AOvVaw3hUy0OqttMqS0-SoT6DoBZ\" target=\"_blank\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGQ\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan\u003e,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe American Scholar\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/gulfcoastmag.org\/online\/winter\/spring-2020\/shrapnel-20\/\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/gulfcoastmag.org\/online\/winter\/spring-2020\/shrapnel-20\/\u0026amp;source=gmail\u0026amp;ust=1750292857092000\u0026amp;usg=AOvVaw3ze1F5IBTRV4G9Fq2k8XqG\" target=\"_blank\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGulf Coast\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003eand many other venues. He is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, a Yaddo Residency, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHe is currently at work on a collection of essays interrogating how the military-industrial complex shapes discourses of masculinity, remembrance, and veteran identity. He teaches at the United States Air Force Academy.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"the-stick-soldiers","title":"The Stick Soldiers","description":"\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt age nineteen, Hugh Martin, a reservist, had to withdraw from college for a deployment to Iraq. After training at Fort Bragg, Martin spent 2004 in Iraq as the driver of his platoon sergeant\u003cspan\u003e’\u003c\/span\u003es 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. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Stick Soldiers\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eThe Stick Soldiers\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Here’s nine months worth of sawdust and sweat, dear reader. Somehow, Hugh Martin has wrung poetry from a scab, and now, the full shock and beauty and mystery of the things of war that won’t let go will stick to you.”\u003cstrong\u003e—Cornelius Eady, \u003cem\u003efrom the Foreword\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“This is as good as first books get… the idea that poetry can invest and transport in terms of an unlikely experience is now almost lost. Nineteenth-century readers of poetry would queue up for blocks in front of the book-stalls of London publishers. Please now look at the games our children play off computer screens and ask: How can war be an unlikely experience for anyone in our culture? Hugh Martin has an answer for us.\"\u003cstrong\u003e—Norman Dubie\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHugh Martin was born in northeast Ohio in 1984 and attended Nordonia High School.   He joined the Army National Guard in June of 2001 (four months prior to 9\/11) and—after graduating from Nordonia in May of 2002—completed basic and AIT training at Fort Knox, Kentucky, as an M1A1 Tanker. In the fall of 2003, Martin withdrew from Muskingum University when his unit was activated and deployed to northeastern Iraq for approximately eleven months.  He returned home in January of 2005, completed his BA in English at Muskingum in 2009, worked in Ireland on a work visa in 2010, completed his MFA at Arizona State in May of 2012, and was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch6\u003ePublication Date: April 2, 2013\u003cbr\u003eISBN: \u003cstrong\u003e978-1-938160-06-6\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/h6\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e© BOA Editions, Ltd. 2013\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":8420262277,"sku":"9781938160066","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/StickSoldiers_Bookstore.jpg?v=1527683610"},{"product_id":"in-country","title":"In Country","description":"\u003cp\u003eHugh Martin’s second full-length poetry collection moves within and among history to broaden and complicate our understanding of war. These poems push beyond tidy generalizations and easy moralizing as they explore the complex, often tense relationships between U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. The speaker journeys through training to deployment and back again, returning home to reflect on the soldiers and civilians—both memories and ghosts—left behind. Filled with recollected dialogue and true-to-life encounters, these poems question, deconstruct, examine, and reintegrate the myths and realities of service.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eFrom \"Iraq Good\"\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe small boy smiles, kicks roundhouses\u003cbr\u003eacross the potholed road, says, \u003ci\u003eVan Damme\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003egood?\u003c\/i\u003e \u0026amp; I say, \u003ci\u003eYes, Van Damme good.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe boy punches the warm air while we,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eon the street for hours, outside\u003cbr\u003ethe Sadiyah police compound walled\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewith Hescos higher than our gunners’\u003cbr\u003eheads, pace circles around the trucks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwo other boys, maybe nine or ten, \u003cbr\u003echop each other, gently, \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewith knife-hands, \u0026amp; one turns, says, \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e No good Saddam, Saddam \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003every no,\u003c\/i\u003e \u0026amp; he points to his sandal’s heel, \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eSaddam no.\u003c\/i\u003e \u0026amp; so\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eit went: \u003ci\u003eBruce Lee good, Zamzam good, \u003cbr\u003efalafel good,\u003c\/i\u003e even \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eMichael Jackson good,\u003c\/i\u003e even \u003ci\u003eBush good,\u003c\/i\u003e even \u003ci\u003eAmerica very good.\u003c\/i\u003e We stood, \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003espeaking on ground where written words \u003cbr\u003ewere first made, where Enheduanna\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewrote her poems, blunt reed \u003cbr\u003eon wet clay, the clay that made the walls \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethose children slept behind at night, \u003cbr\u003ethat filled the Hescos behind our backs \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eto protect from blasts \u0026amp; bullets.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eIn Country\u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"This is a poetry of small detail and large design. At one level, the guns, wasted terrains, and grinding dailiness of violence surprise and engage. The meticulous craft of detail allows the reader to become both witness and participant. But at a deeper level, the true power and presence of this book, from poem to poem, lies in its offering of the unimaginable to imagination. These are certainly war poems, providing depth and texture to the category. But they are also proof of the hard-won accord that can exist between experience and language, which here lends a memorable force to so many of these poems.\" \u003cstrong\u003e—Eavan Boland \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"With war, the imagination is drawn to spectacle, which these poems are not—and in that way, they help us to understand the unspectacular horror of the regular. ‘There was never that black bowling ball, a burning fuse \/ waving its tail,’ is clear enough, but followed with the more devastating extension of experience, ‘No bombs but \/ in things.’ These clearly important poems disabuse us from thinking of war as we may have—as games, as movies, as acts of what we are convinced is the imagination, having played war as kids. These poems change the reader by offering drama where it is least expected. They are not imagined.\" \u003cstrong\u003e—Alberto Ríos\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“\u003ci\u003eIn Country\u003c\/i\u003e is an astonishing tapestry. I know Randall Jarrell would have loved to review this book, detailing the half-dozen obvious masterpieces—insisting that human memory elevated by the most talented writers has something of the sacraments in it. Human, brilliant, this is truly yet another important book by Hugh Martin.” \u003cstrong\u003e—Norman Dubie\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch5\u003e\u003c\/h5\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e© BOA Editions, Ltd. 2018\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":12202005266513,"sku":"9781942683704","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/In_Country_FC-min.jpg?v=1532521340"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/collections\/133.1340387542.jpeg?v=1750259044","url":"https:\/\/shop.boaeditions.org\/collections\/hugh-martin.oembed","provider":"Boa Editions","version":"1.0","type":"link"}