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Brian Turner

2010
Understanding and Interpreting

1. Why do you think Brian Turner set this poem in a Lowe’s Home Improvement Center? How is
it both a literal setting and also, perhaps, a play on words?
2. Who is Bosch, and why is his appearance “improbable” (l.15)?
3. How does the speaker characterize the Iraqi boy who is introduced in the second stanza?
What does his presence evoke in the speaker?
4. What characters are introduced after Bosch says that he is “going back for more” (l. 20)?
What effect does each new character have on the situation in Lowe’s?
5. Modern American warfare is said to differ from warfare of the past in that soldiers now spend
more time patrolling and identifying enemies than they do fighting. How does this poem
reflect that distinction?
6. What do you make of the “casualty collection center” described in lines 25–28 or the
appearance of “Each dead Iraqi [who] walks amazed”? We know that there are no wounded or
dead Iraqi soldiers in Lowe’s, so what does their appearance here say about the speaker’s state
of mind? Look carefully at what elements at Lowe’s are connected to those dead and wounded.
Analyzing Language, Style, and Structure

1. Vocabulary in Context. In the last line of “At Lowe’s Home Improvement Center” the
speaker imagines a boy writing “T for Tourniquet” on his forehead. In the context of the
poem, what does tourniquet mean? Why might the speaker need one?
2. How does Turner use the images of hardware store items to evoke a battle scene? How do
they contribute to the tone of the poem?
3. There is quite a bit of ambiguity in “At Lowe’s Home Improvement Center”; in other words,
the line between what’s real or explainable and what’s not is blurred. How does this ambiguity
add to the message and meaning of the poem?
4. Trace the ways that Turner moves from the safety of the home improvement center to the
danger of the speaker’s war experience. How does he make those transitions? What is the
effect of the transitions?
5. The epigraph of Brian Turner’s collection in which this poem appears is from the Iraqi poet
Al-Bayati: “I embrace the frightful and the beautiful.” What elements of poetry does Turner
use to recreate and embrace the frightful and the beautiful in this poem?
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