A Collection of Modern War Poetry
By
Those left behind...
Published by BLOODAXE BOOKS 2016
Bryony Doran | Jehanne Dubrow | Elyse Fenton | Isabel Palmer
Home Front is a quadrilogy of book-length sequences by four female poets living in a state of separation from sons or husbands who are in a war zone and permanent danger – or so they feel – as well as from an everyday world of people who have no idea of what anxieties and fears grip them every minute. They also find themselves switching back and forth between two time zones, between the present moment and what might have been happening several hours ago in the Middle East.
The poems in Bryony Doran’s 'Bulletproof' tell a chronological story, from her son’s joining the army through his tour in and return from Afghanistan. Covering every emotion from fear to fury, yet lifted by humour and details of everyday domestic life, these are poems written to preserve a pacifist mother’s sanity as each day plays itself out. They show her coping with The News, her fantasies, his short spells of home leave, and her realisation that both are imprisoned in a modern myth.
These are spare and compassionate poems, often funny but also gripping and very moving. In a dry, unflinchingly fresh and original voice, they tell a story both as old as poetry itself and horribly contemporary.
- Ruth Padel on 'Bullet Proof' by Bryony Doran
