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A Book Review of Red Fields

Red Fields

Poetry that haunts me now about the life I lived back then.

With Red Fields, Jason Poudrier displays a mastery for poetry in general, but particularly for war poetry. If the point of poetry is to induce the reader to feel as strongly about something as the poet does themself, Mr. Poudrier succeeded beyond belief.

The night after reading Red Fields and for several nights afterwards, this book gave me nightmares because it took me back to my own experiences with war in the deserts and cities of Iraq. In my night sweat, I came back to things that actually happened, but that I had suppressed in my memory and forgotten long ago.

Though published in 2012, the events of the poetry collection took place in the context of the lead up to and execution of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. In addition, some of the poems dissect and evaluate the impact of these actions on the participants long after the fighting ceased.

The separation of the book into sections on pre-war, train-up, and conduct of the war resonates well in the psyche of anyone who has done the cycle of notification, pre-deployment preparation, operations, and post-operation activity exceptionally well. The tension builds as the poems stack up to the initiation of the war.

Yet the nightmares, the drudgery, the gore, and the orgasmic release of emotions throughout the work are fueled by the mind of a man who has seen the elephant in all its horror, and is trying to remember a past from before the violence that is simply clouded by blood and death and a passion for peace and a normalcy that may never be again.

Though I do not personally know Jason, his Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) Battery from Fort Sill was attached to the same MLRS Artillery Battalion from Fort Stewart that I served in for the conduct of the invasion. I am intimate with the events, if not all of the people, from which his poems are inspired. He fundamentally captured the reality- the boredom, the bustle, the blood, and the banality that is soldiers at war.

Mongrel Empire Press, Norman Oklahoma, 2012: 81 Pages.