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"The depth of tragedy is keenly felt in Bargen's poem marking
the day of the Russian invasion: "February 24th, 2022.
The Cost of a Flower." In this early piece, we meet an old
woman questioning a Russian soldier, "Why are you here?
Why are you here?" The soldier's only response is a weak, "I
was told this was an exercise." Unlike this naive or deluded
soldier, the old woman recognizes the politically expedient
lie he bears with his rifle. Then, "She offers him / sunflower
seeds to put in his pocket / so when he lies down in this
cold land / flowers will get back up." Is that a germ of hope
that Ukraine will rise again in spite of the invasion? Or is it
the fatalism of a generation that knows the truth of war?
One of the harshest realities of the war is played out in
Bargen's "After the Dam on the Dnieper River." When the
dam is blown by Putin's army to "slow the Ukrainian
counteroffensive," the floodwaters swallow up the Fairytale
Abrova Zoo-a, now, darkly ironic name-and all 300
animals drown. Still, Bargen's lines march on through the
ravages of this war.
Walter Bargen's book finishes with an Epilogue of poems
that bring the barrage of words and images unsettling our
five senses to an uneasy but just close. His unrelenting
vision of the seemingly irreversible decimation of all life in
war will insinuate itself into the reader's consciousness and
conscience for a long time to come. Do not turn away. Keep
reading and thinking in spite of the Thought Police that
might be lurking in our margins."
- Julie Chappell, author of Mad Habits of a Life
In his decades-long and distinguished career as a poet, Bargen has turned to the atrocities of war as his subject matter on many occasions. None of his previous work, however, in this vein matches the power and haunting terrors of his new volume of verse about the Ukraine war with Russia. The subjects he tackles run the gamut of the worst of human behavior. He writes about shivering children, madmen, dead bodies lying in the streets for weeks, and children running, screaming and diving for cover, and he does so with the knowledge, passion, and poetic skill of a literary artist at the peak of his powers.
-Larry D. Thomas, 2008 Texas Poet Laureate, Winner, 2023 Spur Award (poetry category) sponsored by Western Writers of America
