Married to the War

Carrie Preston is a pacifist professor who writes poetry about the human cost of war — not particularly surprising for an academic in New England. But unlike many of her peers, she is inextricably tied to the action: She is married to a Marine fighter pilot who has fought in the war in Iraq.

It is under this specter of potential loss and dangerous deployments that Preston, a young woman with engaging blue eyes and the composed air of a ballerina walking off stage, taps into her unique access to the war to write award-winning poetry.

A MATTER OF OPINION

Preston’s husband, Marine Captain Derek Oliver, returned from Iraq two weeks ago, but to the West Coast. Oliver is stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego and must complete four more years of service.

Despite their distance, Oliver has become one of Preston’s biggest fans, staunchest critics — and the subject of many of her poems.

In her recent work, “A Dream of Jen Harris,” Preston projects herself into her husband’s world to write about a helicopter pilot who was shot down over Al Anbar Province, Iraq on Feb. 7, 2007.

She writes, “She is not a firebird / or phoenix, just a girl. / In my dream, brief offering, / she always loved him and I / wish he could have loved her / before she died.”

Oliver said “Harris” was a very difficult poem for him to read because the poem, like most of Carrie’s work, is grounded in reality.

And while Oliver rarely shares his wife’s poetry with his squadron mates, he did show “Harris” to some Navy alumni overseas.

“They thought it was amazing and of course sad, as many were doing the same things that I was doing and had also known Jen Harris,” he said in an email.

While a continent already separates the couple, their political views and her opposition to his career sometimes make them seem worlds apart. But Oliver said he believes their differing views only make their relationship stronger.

“Our ability over the past five years to discuss a very hard, personal topic with love and mutual respect has enhanced our long term ability to communicate effectively,” he said.

“I fundamentally believe [the war] is wrong and it’s a weight that I bear,” Preston said. “I suppose I think love must always have the weights attached to it.”

OPPOSITES ATTRACT

Just how Preston, a Boston University English professor since fall 2006 and her husband, came to fall in love and wed is far from a storybook tale.

While Oliver lived only 20 miles away from the Angus farm in Michigan where Preston grew up, they had little contact past primary school.

They would not cross paths again until both were on the East Coast and at the insistence of Preston’s father. Preston initially had no interest in dating a Marine. But a mixture of curiosity about how Oliver escaped rural Michigan and the goading of her father made her relent.

Looking back on their first date, Preston recalls how they scheduled to meet in New York City. Preston said she had planned to sabotage the date from the beginning. She took him to an off-Broadway play, titled “The Caveman,” — a spoof on masculinity — hoping to insult him, or at the very least kill, any interest.

“I totally stereotyped him,” she said. “Which is sort of what I teach — gender-based stereotypes and how assumptions disrupt our understanding of each other. I assumed he was a specific kind of man, which proved to be untrue.”

After the performance, Preston said he asked insightful questions and she conceded that it was a “pretty good date.”

Still, Preston was involved in the peace movement at Rutgers University, where she was earning her Ph.D. in Literature, and it would be another year before she would “allow” herself to fall in love with him.

“One of things I’ve learned is that it’s dangerous to turn your back on love,” she said. “I could admit to myself that there was love there, and it became clear that fighting love was not a very productive way of going though life.”

Preston and Oliver were married in May 2004 and she cites “his fundamental faith in human goodness” as one of his most attractive qualities. But since that time, she has seen him deployed twice in three years — first to Japan’s Iwakuni Marine Corps Air Station, then to Iraq’s Al Asad Airbase.

Preston said she fears the war will change her husband.

“I am afraid that he will return to me one day and be different from the man that left,” she said. “I was afraid [the war] would erode his humanity.”

CREATING AN EMOTIONAL IMPACT

After the couple were married, Preston moved to San Diego to live with Oliver. She recalls how differently her work was received during poetry readings in which members of the audience were directly connected to the war.

“People in the audience would come up to me, cry with me — they could never express how they felt,” she said. “I really felt empowered by that response.”

“For me the poetry is mostly about the human cost of the war,” she continued. “What it does to relationships. I feel a need to document this experience.”

Although many BU students are twice removed from the war — neither knowing anyone directly involved nor fearing a draft — Preston hopes her work has the power to move readers to feel the emotional impact of war in the same ways that she does.

“This is a part of their world whether they like it or not,” she said. “This is the war that your generation and my generation are growing up with, indelibly shaping who we are.”

So far, Preston has been accomplishing what she set out to do.

English Professor Matthew Smith said Preston has a way of speaking that enthralls the listener.

“I have heard her give talks to other professors and she’s really good — a really good presenter,” he said. “She’s also a performer as well as being a scholar.”

“She’s going to be a great scholar,” he continued. “She already is, but she is certainly one in the making. She’s going places.”

Former student Carrie Chiusano said she found Preston’s poetry inspiring.

“I’ve read a few of her poems, and I was deeply moved by all of them,” the College of Communication junior said. “The poems are emotionally intense and extremely honest.”

Preston admitted her direct access to the war, including the pain and fear associated with Oliver’s deployments, serve as a source of personal catharsis and compelling poetry.

“I love the story,” she said. “It’s a good story. And I love telling it. And it makes me feel alive. With this contact to death, I’m playing a kind of Persephone role.”

“I want to write that poem,” she said. “I fear that without it, how would I know I’m really alive?”