This is Borczon’s seventh book and consists of 59 short poems of 2-4 lines each. Borczon was a nurse and Navy sailor at Camp Bastian during 2010-2011, which was the busiest combat hospital in Afghanistan at the time. Returning to the United States he was diagnosed with PTSD in 2012 and took up writing as a form of therapy. BODY BAG is a further reworking of Borczon’s war experiences and of his continued fight with the “ghosts of his nightmares” which refuse to go away.
The poems are pithy and harrowing in content. Interestingly, the poems are not arranged chronologically and are titleless. This format perhaps reflects the random order of the reoccurring images of the war and its aftermath which pop into Borczon’s head through his dreams, associations and personal reflections.
The following poems will give you a better idea of the trauma Borczon is facing on a daily basis eight years after his return home:
We wrapped the dead baby in a bath towel
the color of my son’s eyes.
When I got home
my uncle who served
in Viet Nam said
the real war starts now.
some days I think I hear helicopters
some days I think I hear bombs
some days I know I hear screams
That I cry
at almost everything
finally makes sense.
Nurses give pain medication
while corpsmen wrap stumps
and feed the ones without arms.
The ones who wake up
are usually just happy to be alive
at least for the first day.
(All poems reprinted with the permission of the poet)
Body Bag back cover blurbs (click on to enlarge):
Find out more about BODY BAG and purchase it here: http://nixesmate.pub/body-bag-matt-borczon/
Read a Bold Monkey review of Matt Borczon’s second book Battle Lines (Epic Rites Press, 2017) and an interview with the poet here: https://georgedanderson.blogspot.com/2017/01/book-review-interview-matthew-borazon.html
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