Jennifer Williams

as a soldier but also that you were writing poems long before that and you're still writing poems and that that's not your only kind of identity as a poet but it uh but it I guess it is it's wonderful and interesting that you were able to put some of those experiences into words was that just a a natural response for you as a poet to that job that you had at that time yeah yeah

Do you have a feeling about that?

Should we have another poem?

Sure, sure.

Very haunting poem.

And I think that line about the explosion and the blast is really, really powerful.

But then also, again, there's this extraordinary mix of a feeling of sacredness alongside of violence and devastation.

Because that thing about, well, it is very biblical, isn't it?

The river and the Euphrates.

And there's the kind of...

biblical and peaceful connotations of that.

It's interesting.

Even that thing, if you bite into a slice of orange and that's a sort of explosion in your mouth.

if you could describe your writing practice say if when you were these poems were still written while you were actually soldiering these were written in my notebooks and would it be that before bed or when you had a bit of spare time you were just almost as a kind of recording process these were coming out it depended on the place when we first came in country the first three weeks or so

And it looked like, because there are various quotations.

I find that very moving that you were taking the time to have that level of engagement and understanding.

Did you...

Were there other people?

Yeah.

Did you have people there you felt like you could share your, were there other soldiers who were interested in poetry or literature, or were you quite unusual?