War Reporter

“These poems come from a collection called, not surprisingly, The War Reporter. Five years ago I began corresponding with Paul Watson, a journalist best known for his Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph of a fallen American soldier in the streets of Mogadishu in 1993. When Paul took that picture, he claims he heard the dead man speak to him: `If you do this, I will own you forever.’ “The purpose of my work with Paul has been to try to use poetry to bridge the distance between an `average’ person like myself and someone who has witnessed some of the signal atrocities of our era, in places as far-flung as Angola, Kosovo, Rwanda, Iraq, Afghanistan (the list goes on). The poems are derived from his memoir, Where War Lives, his journalism, recordings and transcripts he has shared with me and, most valuably, our e-mails and conversations. Some of these poems take place in Ulukhaktok in the Canadian High Arctic, where I visited Paul in the winter of 2010 while he was enjoying a brief respite from war reporting, covering the `Arctic and Aboriginal Beat’ for the Toronto Star. He’s now based mainly in Kandahar. Our peculiar collaboration has also produced a play, The Body of an American, but after finishing the play I found I couldn’t let his story go. In a very personal way, his voice continues to haunt me.”

About the Author :
Dan O’Brien is an American playwright and poet living in Los Angeles. His play The Body of an American, derived from the same material as War Reporter, was the inaugural winner of the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama.

Review :
‘The subject of this book is war and the pity of war – distilled into very powerful poems that are all the more affecting thanks to their clever and restraining use of personae. At once direct and detached, they make the whole notion of “response” as much a focus of their attention as the facts of conflict.’ – Andrew Motion ‘This is a book of doubles: poet and photographer, photographer and airman, soldier and civilian, gunsight and lens. It is a masterpiece of truthfulness and feeling, and a completely sui generis addition not just to writing about war but to contemporary poetry.’ – Patrick McGuinness, Guardian ‘I can’t speak highly enough of these poems. The book is superb, subtle, memorable, and of a piece. It sings and cries. It consoles. It is a gift to readers of poetry.’ – Jay Parini ‘Dan O’Brien has discovered the poetry in the most harrowing of war stories, and made music of the ways in which we share in each other’s guilts, doubts, and triumphs.’ – Mary-Jo Salter ‘War Reporter is an edgy, heartbreaking amalgam of memoir, dramatic monologue and poetic intensity, in which war reporter Paul Watson’s complex personal struggles are seen against the backdrop of political violence.’ – Alan Shapiro ‘War Reporter is a provocative examination of a life spent recording the ugly facets of a world filled with the unnecessary annihilation of human beings. O’Brien’s bold concept of using the literal in place of metaphor, without requiring regular illusory imagery, is a literary revelation that continues to transport the reader into the world of Paul Watson, with brutal honesty, long after you turn the final page.’ – Robert Harper, Bare Fiction  ‘The poems feel like bricolage, and whether a turn of phrase was crafted by O’Brien, or lifted straight from an email, it’s impossible to tell. Either way, these poems are fresh and loaded with eye-witness testimony. All of this adds up to the most visceral poems that you are likely to read. War Reporter offers the reader a journey into the heart of darkness.’ – John Field, Poor Rude Lines