The Tin Harvest
The Tin Harvest was taken in Cairo, Egypt in February 2009. It was composed with Leica M3, 50 mm Summicron, and Ilford Delta 100 Film. All images copyright, Jeffrey M. Hopkins, Hard Oak Press LLC.
Construction Workers in Egypt
A Construction Site in Cairo, Egypt
Men shouting epithets
Verbally mixing it up the mortar seeps
Between calloused fingers and empty pockets
Strangers behave like orangs throwing bricks blindly
A harangue to modern pharaohs and president hozni mubarak
Jeffrey M. Hopkins is a sometimes poet and alltimes thinker of wonderful thoughts. He is the author of Broken Under Interrogation and other forthcoming works of fiction and thought.
Compositions of Light and Literature joins Hard Oak Press
Dear Readers,
Compositions of Light and Literature will be undergoing some major changes in the coming weeks as it joins to the Hard Oak Press. Hard Oak Press is an independent publisher of fiction and great supporter of the literary arts. We feel that the focus of the blog, Compositions of Light and Literature, as being on the sharing of the photographic art and literary compositions of American author and artist Jeffrey M. Hopkins, was lost during the past year. The fiscal year of 2010 brings us exciting new possibilities. Mr. Hopkins is working at a fevered pace on his next novel, while serving his country in Iraq. Hard Oak Press welcomes him to our family and wishes him well in his continued service to the people of the United States of America. We look forward to his future output, which we are confident will be professional, meaningful, and uplifting.
Thank you for your continued attention,
Richard T. Price
President, Hard Oak Press LLC
Why all the Iraq War Suicides?
I am asking myself this question now. Does it have to do with TBI and PTSD? Does it have to do with loss of hope, loss of morale, the knowledge that the public gives two shits about Iraq? The knowledge that men and women died there for no real good reason? Someone tell me the reason for it, please.
It is best to come home and forget that you were even there. If you are married reconnect with your family. If you hate your wife, divorce her before she gets her claws on your war chest if she hasn’t already spent it decorating the house or buying size 18 Air Jordan shoes for Jody. If she is with Jody don’t shoot them both. Find another woman who is worth your time and your effort and who has patience for your career. A woman like this is hard to find now. Most of all learn to be patient with yourself.
If you are unmarried I cannot stress the importance of getting a life affirming hobby besides drinking and womanizing. Women love us because we are fit, nihilistic, live day to day, and usually put it down well – however this sort of lifestyle can only lead to your ruin. Or unwanted children, which will lead to your ruin. Or death threats from shotgun wielding husbands, which will lead to your ruin. Or sexual addiction.
Get a life affirming hobby. That means a hobby which celebrates the fact that you are alive and didn’t die in that third world shithole of a sewer Iraq. I do hope that there is a Middle East Disneyland there one day, but having been there – I highly doubt it. I would love to take my kids to Babylon. I don’t see it happening.
Take up car repair. Take up an art. Buy a camera. Write something. Read a bunch. Take college classes. But by all means don’t waste your life sucking down brews in a bar waiting to talk to the next phony in a pony tail that sits next to you. Make something of yourself.
Don’t kill yourself over a woman. No matter how much shame you feel that she “Jodied” you, write her off for the whore that she is. Or the poor lonely person that couldn’t wait for you. Have you tried waiting for someone for fifteen months? Have you sent your wife on a weekend getaway before you started pulling your hair out with worry? Some women can’t take it. Either make up or divorce her and get on your quest to find someone nice. If you married a stripper outside of Ft. Bragg for BAH, no harm no foul. Try to find a nice girl in church.
If your wife did something totally off the wall like set up a brothel in your on base housing where she pimped other military spouses out, hire a lawyer and sue her for some of the profits, then get rid of her. You are not your wife. She is an adult woman capable of making her own decisions. Man up and kick her to the curb. Children will complicate things, but it is best to have them someplace stable, than with a total ginned up floosie.
Remember even though you are a professional and member of a team you are still an individual capable of independent thought. No need to be dependent on others for everything.
I can assure you. If you make a commitment to give up the booze and take up a new hobby, you will feel better in a few months. Also if things don’t get much better you can go to www.militaryonesource.com or speak with your chaplain. Iraq is not worth ending your life over.
Jeffrey M. Hopkins is the author of Broken Under Interrogation, where two Iraq war veterans take up the not so life affirming hobby of robbing, torturing, and murdering drug dealers in their rust belt hometown. It is intentionally all the nastiness of war. It is available on Amazon.com.
Review of Broken Under Interrogation
Without telling to much of the book, one of the things that really comes to mind is the book’s reliance on descriptions of torture methods. These are not told in a poetic manner that has you feeling rage or anger toward the victim, rather you are left with a hollow feeling after being a witness to an almost porn like description of violence. The story does offer enough twists and turns to keep you interested in reading the unwinding tale of military man who uses the violence he learned to silence he perceives to be angry,
This individual gave Broken Under Interrogation 3 stars out of a possible 5.
I don’t understand this review. It seems unfinished. I do, however, enjoy the way that scenes of torture are not told in a poetic manner, instead leaving you with a detached hollow feeling. Porn like descriptions of violence. Porn in my mind aides people in “getting their rocks off”. It isn’t real, and it numbs. Is the danger we are faced with our own numbness to violence that we are actually considering letting things as are depicted in this book occur? I hope not.
Jeffrey M. Hopkins
The Conversation
This young boy approached me at the Giza Pyramids offering me a ride on either on of his “fine” horses for ten Egyptian Pounds. His name is Waleed and he is the second youngest horse bound tour guide in Egypt.
Boy: Meester…..al hessan….ashra gennae fahqut. (Mister…the horse….only ten egyptian pounds)
Me: Kam omruk? (How old are you?)
Boy: Ana? (Me?)
Me: Aywa….enta…kam omruk? (Yes….you….how old are you?)
Boy: Sabah (7)
Me: La areed an irkub al hessan ehlan….rakubtu al jamel min qabl! (No I don’t want to ride the horse now, I rode the camel before!)
Boy: “Min fadluk sayid…terkub al hessan….min fadluk…..themanea gennae fahqut.” (Please….sir…..you ride the horse….please….8 egyptian pounds only.)
Me: “La, la, la areed….mish aesh….” (No No, I don’t want….I don’t want (Egyptian Dialect))
Boy: Min fadluk ya sayid….min fadluk….hamza gennae fahqut!” (Please….sir….please…..five pounds only!”
Me: Abuk feen? Lematha enta qaid al hessan?” (Where’s your father, why do you lead the horses.)
Boy: Nahnu fakeer….min fadluk terkub al hessan…..thalatha genae fahqut.” (We’re poor…please…ride the horse….3 pounds only.)
Me: Ma ismuk? (What’s your name?)
Boy: Ismee Waleed. (My name is Waleed.)
Me. “Ya Waleed, la areed an irkub al hessan, areed an ikuth souratek…..lil thalatha genae.” (Waleed, I don’t want to ride the horse, I want to take your picture….for three pounds.)
Waleed: Okay mister. Three pounds.
Click
Me. Shukran…enta baeeya tayib. (Thanks, you are a good salesman.)
Waleed: (Laughs)
That is how this picture came about. Actually, Waleed’s horses were so skinny I was afraid I would break them. If you go to the Pyramids, and see him…..take his picture, but give him a tip.
Interview with Pakistani Spectator
Dear Peeps,
Here is my published interview with the Pakistani Spectator, a hotspot for Bloggers everywhere including Pakistan.
http://www.pakspectator.com/interview-with-blogger-jeffrey-hopkins/
Please check it out.
Thanks,
Jeffrey M. Hopkins
REVIEW OF BROKEN UNDER INTERROGATION
REVIEW OF BROKEN UNDER INTERROGATION by gentleman from Jamaica, NY.
The main protagonist is John Powers, a young recruit who joins the army. Through his POV we lears about the military basic training as well as the war in Iraq. We also get to learn about the underhanded, deceptive and atrocious tactics that one must employ in order to get the job done. The story doesn’t stop there. John returns to train vets to fight against drugs in the neighborhood. But as expected this operation doesn’t go down as planned.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. At certain moments it reminded me of movies such as Apocalypse Now, Rendition. It’s not for the faint of heart as the author paints a very bleak and disturbing picture.
Jeffrey M. Hopkins is the author of Broken Under Interrogation, a novel set in the near future of rot belt America. He chooses these words, because the factories and empty warehouses there serve as gravestones for American Industry. If the United States wants to see a way out of the current economic crisis, they will invent the industries of the 21st century, and employ the hardworking men and women of this rot belt as labor in a building the new American dream. Broken Under Interrogation is the gap that fills the periphery between the American Dream and an American Nightmare. It was published 2008 by the Author Jeffrey M. Hopkins.
Broken Under Interrogation (Review)
Dear Gents, This person from San Francisco, CA reviewed Broken Under Interrogation and said:
“Devastating” I recently reviewed a book that attempted, and failed, to unite a domestic story with a commentary of American presence abroad. Where that book failed, this book succeeds with chilling results. The story of a formerinformation specialist from the Iraq warcarrying home a bit too much baggage from his interrogation days is riveting, both in the Iraq flashbacks and the domestic aftermath. Sometimes brutal, often sad, this book is a stark illustration of the darkness associated with cruelty and the toll it takes on the best-intentioned. Be warned: this is a dark book. If you get the feeling it’s not going to end happily, buckle up for the tragic ride to the climax. Highly recommended, despite the cloud that followed me while I was reading it and for days afterward.
Broken Under Interrogation is available at Amazon.com. Get it. Challenge your opinions!
The Thousand Yard Stare Fictionalized
The gentleman who referred to Broken Under Interrogation as the MOST depressing book he has ever read changed his mind on Amazon.com review and posted the following review:
After more thought, this book should be given three stars, but Amazon won’t let me change my rating.
Let’s start by saying it’s not impossible to actually take a very depressing subject on its face and provide social comment, satire, truths, or philosophy while never losing sight of the depressing reality. “Hogan’s Heroes” was an entertaining comedy about life in a German WWII POW camp. “Catch 22″ and “MASH” both found irony and humor among the destruction and meaninglessness of war, and used them to illustrate “greater truths” about humanity. Vonnegut was in my opinion the master of balancing the personal futility and ugliness of war with irony and humor to allow “the rest of us” to avoid looking the other way.
This plot has its roots in the Iraq Wars and the military, but focuses on all the shattered dreams, broken promises and disturbing trends of American cultural life to create one of the most depressing books I’ve ever read. Once is constantly hammered with the devastating consequences of this needless war to the personal lives of veterans and to the lives of all whom they touch.
There is no joy. There is no hope. There is no humor. There is no point. There is only the abyss and the apocalypse, dripped drop by acidic drop into your face until you want desperately to look away–to pretend it doesn’t exist.
The narrative, considering the subject, is emotionally flat and brings home the legendary “thousand yard stare”, because none of these people have anything worthwhile to live for except the glimmer of surviving another day. Having no military experience myself, only reading of Paul Fussell’s works prepared me for this. There is no glory, there is no lasting success, there is no justification.
So, why should you read this book? If you want to see the “personal” costs of these policies that created and exploited this war, this book hits you full in the face with it. If you want to see the policy consequences to the people least able to bear them, this book works. It doesn’t demonize enemies or glorify Americans, and it is relentless. It may actually change for its readers, the cavalier attitude with which we order our young men and women into harm’s way with no genuine regard for long term costs or consequences. Be brave. Read the book.
Jeffrey M. Hopkins says: I am trying really hard to find the irony and humor in my experience. Perhaps twenty years from now, when the aesthetic distance has been achieved and the outcome of our experiment in the deserts of Iraq have been realized, I can write another book. For now I think that Broken Under Interrogation gets the point across. I’m glad this gentleman reconsidered his review. When you get into John Powers’ mind, you realize this is PTSD put to paper. The numbness, the isolation, the longing for conflict, the horror……the horror.
