Bulletins from a War Zone by Susan Sailer

Susan Shaw Sailer’s poems in Bulletins from a War Zone document the atrocities of “the longest war” the United States has been involved in: the ongoing conflict in Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. She has done extensive research on the events there through public documents, news articles, and interviews and she focuses on damaged and vulnerable families forced to make the decision to emigrate to Greece or Turkey on overcrowded boats in perilous seas. Some of them will escape; many others will not. By recording and imagining what would be in the backpacks the emigrants guard with their lives or how women and children sometimes survive a sinking ship, Sailer has made the news intimate. She reminds us that any war affects all the people connected to it, including the civilians and the safe noncombatants who will experience the war at a distance. I am reminded of Goya’s prints, “The Disasters of War,” in which he creates images of the war he did not fight in and names them with stark titles – “There is no one to help them,” “This is the worst,” and “I saw this.” Sailer has seen the war zone and through her urgent poems, she makes us see it too.

–Maggie Anderson, Dear All and Windfall

In Bulletins from a War Zone, Susan Shaw Sailer bears unstinting witness to the lives of refugees and captives – from Syria, Afghanistan, Nigeria, in camps and on rafts struggling to survive.  Deceptively simple lists – e.g., of the contents of a backpack – and stories – e.g., a widow preparing her husband’s body – bring these strangers to life and imbue them with dignity. The book throws us a lifeline to rescue us from burnout and apathy.

–Roberta P. Feins, A Morsel of Bread, A Knife