Lisa Stice

When I equate war and poets, I usually think Sassoon and Owen. Otherwise I'm pretty ignorant about war poetry, or poetry in general for that matter. I read mostly memoirs and fiction when it comes to war lit. So much of Lisa Stice's latest collection, LETTERS FROM CONFLICT, remains something of a mystery to me. Stice said she was moved to write these "letters" to poets, both living and dead, after reading a biography of an obscure poet from the Great War, Edward Thomas, a writer I knew from an essay by the late Samuel Hynes, in his collection, ON WAR AND WRITING. And I recognize many of the poets addressed here, their names at least. And some of the ancients, but I haven't read Homer or Virgil since college. Jarrell and his Ball Turret Gunner I remember only vaguely, and Akhmatova from my DLI days, but, well, mostly I enjoyed Stice's responses and reactions to the others named here. "At Bedtime During Deployment," with its "I miss him" and "I love him" touched me deeply, as did "In the Dark," about a stuffed toy dog shared by her daughter, "because it is scary to sleep alone." Or "It Is Cold this Hour," about staying warm, and her man who has "already left and / forgotten your coat on the chair." And the empty quarters of moving day, when "no one kisses us goodbye / there are only orders / telling us where to go ..." in "We Were Not Here."

As a military spouse, Stice has personal experience of all these things - of conflict, and hard won resolution - and it shows in her sparse, carefully chosen words - her poetry. I salute you, Lisa. Keep writing it all down.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the Cold War memoir, SOLDIER BOY: AT PLAY IN THE ASA… (more)

Lisa Stice is a poet. She is also a military spouse, and maybe a teacher too, although I'm not sure about the last. As a poet, she writes mostly about that second thing, being "the wife," and often waiting for - and worrying about - the husband. Because today's all-volunteer military is not like the old one, when there was still a draft. I know, because I served in both kinds, in the sixties, and then, years later, in the seventies and eighties. Today's professional soldier is different largely because of the "forever wars," and the long, repeated deployments and training exercises that leave the spouses behind for months at a time, forced to take over all the family duties, both the heavy lifting and mechanical kinds, being the protector, and still the nurturer and comforter too. Stice's poems reflect the pressures and difficulties of these transitions, when "the car needs engine coolant" ("Devising the Strategy") or -

"If, in the night, we wake, / and think we hear thuds / outside the door / we hold our breaths / silence: is this fear?" ("Dependants")

As the poet paints precise word pictures of endless days of waiting, playing with her daughter and their small dog, she also weaves in references to saints and sculpture, songs and storms, and - always, counting the days - the prayers, hopes and quiet joys of reunions -

"... rucksack and / suitcase placed by the door, dog jumps/ for licks, hugs and kisses, I'm so glad / you're back ..." ("Homecomings")

The impermanence and uncertainty of the military life is also reflected here, in the wishful "one of these days" of "As We Look at Real Estate Sites," and waiting for reassignment, "this limbo of / here for now ..." in "Here We Are."

Stice employs an interesting device in dividing her titular FORCES into four sections: Operational, Gravitational, Defensive, Frictional, Tensile and Magnetic. Some worked better than others. But this is unmistakenly a book about life in the "military" Forces, and Stice once again succeeds admirably in portraying that experience, imaginatively using her own life as a wife, mother and teacher, filling her poetry with immediately relatable images of a woman often left on her own with a small child and a dog, and how they fill the hours, weeks and months until the next homecoming. I enjoyed this little book and will recommend it heartily.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER… (more)