Battle Lines is
the second collection of poems by the Erie, Pennsylvania resident Matthew
Borczon. He was a nurse and Navy sailor at Camp Bastian during 2010-2011, which
at the time, was the busiest combat hospital in Afghanistan. Upon his return to
the United States, Borczon was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD) in 2012 and started writing as a form of therapy. In a recent interview with BM,
which follows this review, he explains, “I was unable to talk about the war and
a therapist said I needed to get my story out somehow.” But as Borczon has
painfully discovered, the writing hasn’t made the ghosts of his nightmares to go away.
There are 40 short poems in the collection. The language is understated
and carved to the bone. There are typically only two words in each line and the
words cascade down the page, similar in form to the late outlaw poet Todd Moore.
The poems tightly compress Borczon’s most recent reflections into his post-war
condition but he also includes the narratives of others he has heard about
from a string of wars, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam and World War I.
Borczon says of the title, Battle Lines, “There was
some discussion about what it meant and was it a fitting title? I used it as a
way of saying that for some of us the war is not over, not just me but I know
Viet Nam vets who still have a lot of trouble and I can say honestly I do not
know of anyone who comes through a war and is the same after.”
Although Borczon was not a front-line combatant, his role as
an emergency trauma nurse, would have brutally exposed him to death and dying on
a daily basis. The collection does not explore his role as a medic, but rather
focuses on his return home to America and how he has struggled since to make
sense of it all. We experience his nightmares, his panic attacks, the
resentment some people express towards him in the community, we sit beside him
at group therapy, enter his workplace- & along the way, we come to better
understand why he needs a drink or a smoke, and most importantly, how he has become estranged from
his family.
Borczon subtly incorporates his thoughts and impressions onto
the page and his use of stark, realistic imagery and language adds authenticity
to his writing. In some key poems, we are able to join the dots to help us better
understand his sense of hopelessness and disintegration. In “Brian emailed” he
explains to his friend about the presence of his online poetry: "I am/ just
trying/ to make/ sense out/ of everything/ we saw". In “the inmate”, the
prisoner, an ex-soldier, discovers that his new cell number is the same as the squad
number he has tattooed on his forearm. Borczon, working as a prison nurse, is
asked if he thought this “meant something.” He replies:
I no longer
believe anything
means anything.
In “like war” Borczon admits that he “knew what to expect”
but didn’t think he’d “come back… in
pieces”:
like war
movies and
dime store
novels I
thought I
knew what
to expect
I never
thought I
would come
home pure
but I
expected
to come
back whole
instead of
in pieces
(reprinted with the permission of the author)
Some of Borczon’s best work are the terse, imagist micro-poems
such as “in the”, “Kevlar chest”, “I once” and “helicopters” which further hint
at the terrifying and unrelenting ghosts embodied in his imagination.
Borczon’s writing is perhaps most compassionate when he
describes the impact of the war on his own family. In a series of poems, “when I",
“my mother”, “my wife”, and “for Dana”,
he represents how his deployment in the Afghani War has smashed to pieces his
pre-war identity and how the casualties of war are not only those who served, but
also their loved ones- the children, partners and parents. In “for Dana” the reader feels a pulse of
humanity, long suppressed by Borczon in the careful, deadpan delivery of his poems. The
broken, hollow man temporarily stirs & perhaps even sheds a tear:
for Dana
hold me
and squeeze
the ash
out of
my heart
the sand
from inside
my skin
lean in
and sing
into my
ear until
the ghosts
leave
run your
cool hands
over my
118 degree
nightmares
and if
I start
to cry
all the
tears I
have will
you build
a boat
out of
your memories
of our
life before
the war
(reprinted with the permission of the author)
About 15 of the poems in the collection are third person portrait poems which provide
snap-shots into the post-war lives of veterans, in particular, how they are
psychologically maimed as a result of their war experiences. The most disturbing
amongst these poems is “his neighbour”
in which a bunkered down vet decides to kill a vexatious neighbour, but impulsively
shoots himself through the head instead.
Also memorable is “Randy repaired” about an Iraqi war vet
who used to fix bicycles for the local children, but “now he/ can’t get/ through a/
night without/ a bottle/ of tequila/ and a/ machete.” The poem “Gary’s been”
furthers the idea of dislocation and paranoia. Even after being back from Iraq
for 8 years, he “still/ won’t pull/ right up/ behind a/ strange car/ at
stoplights.” “Andi Got” succinctly expresses the numbness, the sense of death
that many veterans feel. He orders a farming magazine from England and wryly
says,
I need
to put
something
in the
ground that
is not
dead
In "they were" before a physical induction, Frank
drops a stack of weights onto a guy’s foot so he can avoid serving in Viet Nam.
Each of these poems adds to our understanding of the grievous impact war has on everyone
involved. We never find heroes in this collection, only victims- who are traumatised for life.
The book’s jacket was designed by Richard Robert Hansen
publisher of poems-for-all. It is sepia coloured photograph and adjoins the front and back covers. It features a column of American soldiers rushing to board what appears to be
a Blackhawk helicopter, which is blurred in the distance. The difficulty of establishing
the time and place of the photo is deliberate, and perhaps Hansen is
universalising the traumatic impact that all wars have on those who bravely
serve as represented by Borczon’s work.
This is an outstanding but short collection of poems by a
writer who has survived a war but who is perilously clinging on. Asked this morning about how his head was now, Borczon vulnerably replied: “I
think I have given up on the idea that I can ever really get better, I hope to
get better at living with all of this. My symptoms come and go, lately it has
been extreme anxiety, and panic but some days it is other things as well. I
still have nightmares pretty much every week, but I am better at processing
them and just kind of moving on after they happen though. I do the best I can,
I still have a job and the wife has not left me yet and my kids are all healthy
and happy so I do not feel like I have a lot to complain about.”
BIO: Matthew Borczon is a nurse and Navy sailor. He has written two books
of poetry, A Clock of Human Bones from
the yellow chair review press and Battle
Lines from Epic Rites. This summer he will release Ghost Train through Weasel Press and Sleepless Nights and Ghost Soldiers from Grey Borders Press. He
has four children three jobs and still manages to find time to write and
publishes often in the small press.
Find out more about the book and purchase it here: http://www.epicrites.org/rumors-and-rumblings-of-war/battle-lines or here: http://www.epicrites.org/pre-order.html
INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW BORCZON 18 JANUARY 2017
Can
you explain why you started writing about your war experiences in Afghanistan?
I started writing as a form of personal
therapy, I was unable to talk about the war and a therapist said I needed to
get my story out somehow. I had written poetry a lot as a young man and it just
sort of came out that way.
I
have a friend who quit nursing after facing the trauma one night of a carload
of critically injured teenagers in a small regional emergency ward. You've seen
a lot of shit. How were you able to grind it out overseas for those two years?
The job is just the job. There was no
other choice, probably why it is so hard now. At the time you suppress how
unreal and bloody it is. Hell, we even laughed at it at the time. The hours
were long but it is what you signed on to do so you do what they ask. I
remember wondering if I should not be bothered by how normal it all felt at the
time. It really was only after that it started to affect me.
You
were trained for the job and knew what to expect. When did it all start
unravelling for you? Was it a specific or a culmination of events.
Some people close to me say I was
different the minute I got off the plane, but it was only a couple of months
before even my wife was saying I needed to figure out what was wrong with me. I
do not think it was one thing though. The nightmares started right away so that
was my first clue.
Can
you briefly explain how your diagnosis of PTSD was determined in 2012? What
medical benefits did that diagnosis allow you to access?
I was referred to the va by a counselor
I was seeing, the VA system has a group of evaluations and tests to help them
determine the diagnosis. I am currently 70% disabled, this money made it
possible to trade down to an easier nursing job. I had been a prison nurse and
the job was brutal, long hours and there was real danger in it at times, which
my therapist thought was really unhealthy for me.
When
you returned home, how had you changed and how had others, including family and
friends perceived you differently?
I was anxious, depressed and angry all
the time. I isolated and drank way too much and then there were a lot of
unhealthy thoughts about whether or not I still wanted to be alive.
Wolf
Carstens of Epic Rites Press is a huge fan of your first book of poetry, A Clock
Of Human Bones. What was the process like in getting Battle Lines into print?
I am a huge fan of Wolfs writing and
after he read A Clock of Human Bones he
sent me some of his books to read. I did not have another book to send him so I
just made a small chap book on my computer then sent that to him. I called it
my fictitious chap book. After he read it he said he wanted to put it out.
After that it all moved really quick, he has a ton of good energy and he brings
it all to his projects. I really enjoy working with him.
In Battle Lines, why did you decide to
include a separate page to provide "a full definition of battle
line"?
There was some discussion about what it
meant and was it a fitting title. I used it as a way of saying that for some of
us the war is not over, not just me but I know Viet Nam vets who still have a
lot of trouble and I can say honestly I do not know of anyone who comes through
a war and is the same after. Not that I have met anyway.
How
is your head now? (Are you still experiencing nightmares? Flashbacks? Panic
Attacks?) What has helped you in putting some of the pieces back together
again?
I think I have given up on the idea that
I can ever really get better, I hope to get better at living with all of this.
My symptoms come and go, lately it has been extreme anxiety, and panic but some
days it is other things as well. I still have nightmares pretty much every
week, but I am better at processing them and just kind of moving on after they
happen though. I do the best I can, I still have a job and the wife has not
left me yet and my kids are all healthy and happy so I do not feel like I have a
lot to complain about.
Who
are some of your literary influences in writing of your books and who are you
reading now?
I love the writing of Wolf Carstens and
John Yamrus, I also love a lot of the small press writers. Jason Baldinger is a
Pittsburgh favorite. For larger literary types I loved CK Williams and Jim
Carroll had a special place in my early writing life. I enjoy Bukowski, like
everyone else. I am currently reading a whole lot of small press poetry from
folks like Sarah Francis Moran and Rusty Barnes.
How
do you presently juggle your professional work with that of an aspiring writer?
The writing is easy and I usually do it
in my car waiting to take my kids to school. The poems are always there just
like the nightmares. The working on my career such as it is takes a lot more
time. I submit a whole lot and I am always somewhere into the next book idea. I
work as a practical nurse for a social service agency so I am pretty busy in my
work life that is probably why it is mostly poetry, no time to write fiction.
Though I have published 4 short stories in 2016.
What
do you have in mind for your next project?
I just agreed to put out a chap book
with Grey Boarders press from Canada, they are interested in maybe putting out
my first full collection of poetry sometime in 2018. I also have a chap book
coming in June from Weasel press called Ghost Train. There is also another manuscript
shopping around now, but that one has nothing to do with the war. I try to not
only write about my PTSD, though it is hard to get away from.
Thanks Matt.
Selected Online Poems
If you haven’t read Matthew Borczon’s poetry before, the following five poems will provide you with a taste:
“what i did in the war” (Chicken and Coffee): http://www.friedchickenandcoffee.com/2015/12/12/what-i-did-in-the-war-poem-by-matt-borczon/
“Finished” and “What we never talk about” (Drunk In A Midnight Choir): https://drunkinamidnightchoir.com/2016/04/26/two-poems-matt-borczon/
“Sitting In The Dark” (Your One Phone Call): https://youronephonecall.wordpress.com/2016/11/01/sitting-in-the-dark-by-matthew-borczon/
“VA Appointment” (Your One Phone Call): https://youronephonecall.wordpress.com/2017/01/01/va-appointment-by-matthew-borczon/
Further Resources:
Poets Underground Presents Matthew Borczon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7WLwuELZ1U
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