Heat + Pressure: Poems from War. Ben Weakley. Johnston, Iowa: Middle West Press, 2022.
Sometimes you go against the advice of the well-known saying and choose a book by its cover. A design draws you in through color or shock; a title intrigues you. Heat + Pressure: Poems from War by Ben Weakley delivers on the initial interest brought about by its unique title that sits in bold letters over the melted green army figure on the cover. Heat + Pressure shows how today’s warriors can become poets and help veterans synthesize war and their reintegration into society. As this review argues, reintegration after war is a formative process fraught with difficult acknowledgements, depths of disillusionment, and realizing one’s own strength for creating something instead of destroying it. It also provides welcome space for reflection amongst the veteran community.
Consider the title for a moment: Heat + Pressure. Two words that cause reflection. Does one read them as “heat and pressure” or as “heat plus pressure”? The title could be the first poem of the book. This wordplay sets the tone for the rest of the collection, including the section titles. Five sections divide the book: “Heat,” “Pressure,” “Blast,” “Debris,” and “Fragmentation.” Peruse the section titles and the poems seem to tell a story of a soldier shaped, formed, and fractured—in the literal sense—by an improvised explosive device. But that’s not the whole story. Instead, a retired soldier grapples with the war-games of his youth, the boredom and chaos of his service, and the struggle to find common ground with angry citizens bent on destruction.
The first section, “Heat,” seems to be an autobiographical account of the author’s journey from child to soldier. Part of this journey involves poems about his grandparents who never talked about their wars, his own shenanigan-filled childhood, and what seems to be his father’s disappointment with his son’s immaturity. The first section ends with a familiar notion: that young people take on the narratives of their citizens calling for war and vengeance. After reading “America Calls Him,” the reader may think back to the exhortations of Paul Baumer’s schoolmaster in All Quiet on the Western Front.[1] That might be the point.
The second, third, and fourth chapters—”Pressure,” “Blast,” and “Debris”—toss away glamorous views of war. These chapters capture the boredom of 4 a.m. range days and the shock of having the meaning of the word obliterated when bombs destroy lives and material alike. Sometimes the dead are soldiers, and other times the dead are children; all are tragic and wasteful. It is in these sections that the poems introduce Musar Afghanistan, an imaginary Afghan warlord and elder who torments the poet with doublespeak during war and peace. The boring and mundane intermix with chaos and insanity. A busy nighttime patrol encounters gunshots and an opportunity for voyeurism on an Iraqi couple. A war wound turns out to be from a fall into a hole while walking with night vision devices. Such embarrassing moments are the unspoken anecdotes of combat, and convey the absurdity and vulnerability of such moments.
“Fragmentation” is perhaps the most difficult chapter. The poems speak of U.S. callousness towards migrants, the moral injury caused by the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Building, and the destabilizing feelings of re-integration. The latter feelings are a constant theme in war poetry. Veterans have struggled to come back to their homes and find everything changed. What is unique about Weakley’s work is his social commentary on the lack of humanity from our fellow citizens, when he was the one supposedly managing violence on our behalf. He finds the behavior of angry insurrectionists reprehensible and sees parallels to his nemesis Musar Afghanistan, who has followed him to create battlefields on the homefront.[2]
Which brings us back to the cover of the book. The green army figurine on the front at first looks to be melted into pavement. An alternative perspective shows itself after reading Weakley’s poems; the figurine was softened by the heat of war, thrown amongst debris by many blasts, and trampled by his fellow citizens after his return home. I could not help but think of the assumptions civilians make about veterans, whether by carelessness, ignorance, or anger.
Warrior poets have existed for as long as there have been wars to write about. Homer and Virgil chronicled the fall of Troy and the founding of Rome, respectively. The Civil War gave us Ambrose Bierce and Walt Whitman. Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, and John McCrae warned us away from lies about the romantic notions of war. Veterans of the global war on terrorism—Ben Weakley, Leo Jenkins, Amy Sexauer, and Mason Rodrigue—carry the paradox of the warrior–poet; they harmonize their experiences of destruction with the ability to bring their creative spirit into the world. Society has a role in reintegrating its warriors back into society, however Weakley bemoans his fellow citizens’ willingness to forget the wars and get on with life. The loss of connection seems acutely felt as here in “A Soldier’s Lament.”
“A Soldier’s Lament”
And who remains to listen
When we tell our stories?In the land without memory,
In the country of words
that have no meaning,who remains to hear us
when we speak of our war?[3]
It is a clarion call for reflection; a challenge to readers to be courageous and to disown ignorance in their search for answers. Questions such as the ones above are dotted throughout the book. For example, in the poem “In Some Distant Country” about the January 6, 2021, insurrection, the author poses this question:
Who can show us how to rescue
our would-be executioners
from the gallows they built?[4]
After reading poems about 9-line MEDEVACs, incoming artillery rounds, vehicle-borne explosive devices, and night patrols, reflection on the divides between society and its veterans is a tough task. Nonetheless, it is a welcome and needed one. Ben Weakley’s Heat + Pressure: Poems From War is a vital addition to the creative arts that asks veterans and society to acknowledge our collective humanity and the price we pay when we bring war upon our young people.
Marshall McGurk is an Army officer and a student at the School for Advanced Military Studies. His poetry has been published by The Havok Journal and in Savage Wonder, the literary blog of the Veterans Repertory Theater. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not reflect those of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
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Header Image: Untitled, 2021 (Simon Lee).
Notes:
[1] Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet On The Western Front (New York, NY: Random House, 1996), https://www.britannica.com/topic/All-Quiet-on-the-Western-Front-novel.
[2] Ben Weakley, Heat + Pressure: Poems From War (Johnston, IA: Middle West Press, 2022).
[3] Ben Weakley, Heat + Pressure: Poems From War (Johnston, IA: Middle West Press, 2022), 73.
[4] Ben Weakley, 65.