Selected by Robert Olen Butler from a field of 265 entries, the winner of the Iowa Review’s inaugural Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans is poet Hugh Martin, veteran of the Iraq War. Martin receives $1,000 and publication of his poems in the Spring 2013 issue of the Iowa Review. Martin told PBS Newshour that, though he kept a journal during his service, he never wrote poems while in Iraq.

“[Poetry became] a good way to meditate on experiences or stories I wanted to tell,” said Martin in a phone interview with AWP. “I became very comfortable in that genre. My first year back from Iraq people asked me about my war experience on a daily basis. My writing is my long, long answer.”

According to the description for the Sharlet Memorial Award, the prize is intended to work toward changing the assumptions people have about veterans and war writing. Martin says for many people the Iraq war is already written off as a bad idea, a bad thing that happened. No Weapons of Mass Destruction were found. U.S. military involvement elsewhere in the Middle East remains highly controversial.

“But the veterans exist, the Iraqi people still exist. It’s hard for people to see that it’s real, to understand that,” said Martin. “Most of it’s washed down a stream. I want to make it more tangible, give different perspectives, make it more real. I write because so many people ask me questions about my experience.”

Martin acknowledges that there doesn’t seem to be an abundance of war poetry, specifically Iraq war poetry, in publication, but he expects that in five to ten years there’ll be more books of poems by veterans of these wars.

“For [the Iraq] war, Brian Turner (author of the collection, Here, Bullet) is the poet who’s out there. I’ve put effort into looking for other veteran writers, and I really don’t know any other veterans who have books of poetry other than Turner.”

When asked if writing about his experiences is therapeutic, he responded by saying, “Yeah, being deployed over there is so surreal and strange. Writing about it in any genre is a way to tell your stories and talk about your experiences… and maybe sometimes you write a good poem or story. It’s therapeutic in that I can answer the question that people keep asking. But, more and more, it’s about writing the poem, doing what’s needed for the poem. So, I sometimes leave out certain things, sentimental things.”

Martin is currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow, and his first book of poems, The Stick Soldiers, winner of BOA Editions’ A. Poulin Jr. First Book Prize, is due for release in March of next year. His chapbook, available online, is called So, How Was the War? Martin plans to attend the AWP conference in Boston this coming Spring and will read from his first book.

The Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans is named after Vietnam veteran and antiwar writer and activist, Jeff Sharlet. His family helped found and fund the award.

Related Links: PBS NewsHour: Military-Only Literary Award Announces Winner  ;  IowaReview: Winner Announcement, Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans