Slow War

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. It stands in the tradition of Wilfred Owen's "e;Dulce et Decorum Est"e; and Kevin Powers's "e;Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting."e; A century after the First World War, Hertwig presents both the personal cost of war in poems such as "e;Somewhere in Flanders/Afghanistan"e; and "e;Food Habits of Coyotes, as Determined by Examination of Stomach Contents,"e; and the potential for healing in unlikely places in "e;A Poem Is Not Guantanamo Bay."e; 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 and its difficult aftermath on the homefront, 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.