Benjamin Hertwig is a former member of the Canadian Armed Forces, a painter, and a PhD student at the University of british Columbia whose writing has recently appeared on NPR and in the New York Times.
"We are occasionally lucky enough to encounter a writer we need,
like Benjamin Hertwig, who offers solidarity while challenging our
assumptions, who illuminates and shades our lives in surprising
ways. After reading these poems I can't imagine a world without
them." John K. Samson, musician and editor, author of Lyrics and
Poems, 1997-2012
"In his quiet way, Benjamin Hertwig shows us the terror and wonder
of being alive. Slow War is a powerful exploration of violence,
longing, and the before and after of 'time and war and other old
gods.' A profound and beautiful book." Deborah Campbell, winner of
the 2016 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for A Disappearance in
Damascus
"I know of few books that deal with the experience of combat in
such a humane and almost tender way. Benjamin Hertwig's Slow War is
a powerful and moving work of art." John Skoyles, poetry editor of
Ploughshares, author of Suddenly It's Evening
"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was once called "soldier's heart."
The term may not be scientifically precise, but it's metaphorically
apt. Benjamin Hertwig served in the Canadian Armed Forces in
Afghanistan, and this hard-hitting debut collection is the record
of a soldier's heart, before, during and after war. The "before"
poems have an elegiac sense of distance, while the combat poems
have a jarring immediacy: the lines stutter and break into
fragments. In "First Shot," Hertwig writes of the confusing surge
of emotion when he shoots at the driver of a taxi following their
convoy too closely: "you've never felt this way before shame
euphoria, the first/time you saw a body without clothes, your order
was to shoot." Poems about returning to civilian life bear poignant
witness to how war has changed him: "When you returned from the
war, you didn't/think of the dead much. you wanted to be/a child
again."" Toronto Star
"Hertwig touches on some of our deepest national myths, only to
push in, breaking the veneer of patriotism to reveal something much
more potent." CV2
"In this collection, Hertwig remembers, in lyrical detail, moments
of violence, fear, and respite. He traces violence from the
schoolyard to war, and its aftermath for the soldier. The
consequences of the indiscriminate violence of war are made
delicate in spite of an uneasiness with making poetry of it."
Montreal Review of Books
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