Lian Bunny
News Assignment Editor
Hugh Martin, veteran and poet, read from his award-winning book, “The Stick Soldiers,” at the Olean Public Library on Veterans Day, Nov. 11.
The book of poems won the 2011 Poulin Prize. The prize is awarded to honor a poet’s first book and the late founder of the BOA Editions, Ltd., a not-for-profit publisher of poetry and poetry in translation. Winners receive a $1,500 honorarium and book publication.
Martin’s visit was funded by the New York State Council of the Arts, the Olean Public Library and the Jamestown Community College’s Cattaraugus County Campus Program Committee, that’s a mouthful Faculty Student Association and JCC’s student veteran organization, Club Valor.
At age 19, Martin withdrew from college for a deployment to Iraq. He was involved in hundreds of missions, including cleaning routes for IEDs and disposing of unexploded ordinances.
“When I went to Iraq, I was reading a lot,” Martin said. “I kept a journal. I wouldn’t write in it every day, but I would always write about every day almost objectively. Not many feelings. By the time I got home, I had a lot of pages in this journal.”
The Ohio native returned from war and graduated from Muskingum University and received his MFA from Arizona University. He is now the Emerging Writer Lecturer at Gettysburg College.
Martin’s poems in “The Stick Soldiers” deal with his fright of going to war and his experiences in combat.
His poem, “Four-Letter Word,” says, “(My Aunt Joan) talks/at the retirement home/My nephew is going/to EAR-RACK!/saying the four-letter word/like food she’s trying to/spit out.”
In the same poem, he continues to display his emotions concerning Iraq.
“At Ohio State with Jake and Larry, we walk/from house to house, keg to keg, drink beers/…When I wake on white carpet in a living room, I’m not sure what has happened,/but I’m still going to Iraq.”
“Fifty-Caliber Scarf” further shows his feelings about being a soldier at war.
“Soon, all of us begin/lifting this chain onto our shoulders,/posing for pictures, hardly able/to stand straight or take it off/by ourselves, this ammo/we might use, though all of us/had only killed thousands/of plastic men in America…/who never shot back.”
At the talk, Martin recalled his frustrations upon returning from war. Many people would ask him questions about his war experience, questions he did not want to answer.
“Literature is the best way to answer those questions as honestly as possible,” Martin said. “It’s hard not to be overtly political. I wanted to remain as objective as possible. This is what it’s like to be a soldier—you make your own opinions.”
