Friendly Fire

(Paperback)

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Comprising experimental poetry and prose, Friendly + Fire interrogates the male subjective experience of war and the gendered implications of camaraderie or brotherhood while aligning the seriousness of a war target with the frivolities of gossip: MILITARY LINGO SUBLIMATES SMACK TALK FROM HERE ON IN.
Friendly + Fire employs a character named H.S. (also to be read as his) as a filter for engaging with and through real-life stories of friendly fire. In the first section, the Tarnak Farm Incident (where four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan were killed by American Air Force pilot Harry Schmidt) is used as source material, intersecting with questions about receiving a pink slip from ones employer and the mental and physical conditions
endured by fighter pilots (suppressed appetite, prescribed sedatives and amphetamines to regulate sleep, and stress tolerance). Reductionist language is used to describe friendship in the 21st century (forced affect in the workplace and Facebook friends).
Act I of LaFrances first book, Species Branding, ends with the line: crippled on my last leg. where are our friends It is a question that has carried forward into Friendly + Fire, acting as the connective tissue between these two texts.

Reviews

As smart and swell as [LaFrances previous book] Species Branding was, Friendly Fire constitutes a considerable ratcheting up of risk, affect, sheer nerve. LaFrances use of H.S. is incisive. LaFrances tone oscillates wildly between Philosophe and Riot Grrrl, which is great for those who prefer to be disturbed. Jagged with political sensation. A world of milquetoast poetry could benefit from paying heed to Danielle LaFrances brave aggressions.
Contemporary Verse 2

LaFrances Friendly + Fire is composed out of an aesthetic of war and friendship, intimacy and accidents of upheaval, whether political, social or personal, writing out the specifics of armed conflict and intimate acts. Hers is a critique of multiple systems, as well as her own actions, and each thread throughout the collection, interweaving and occasionally getting (deliberately) tangled. In LaFrances poems, colours and contexts blend.
rob mclennan

An appropriately intelligent book that does not hold back for any person or anything. It rouses, coughs and spits in protest, defies and enlightens all the same. In its grimmest moment, Friendly + Fire reminds me of who we are and who we have the potential to be.
Queen Mobs Tea House

"Friendly + Fire is a capella pornography, a multi-vocal argument concerning the collateral damages attendant upon military aggression, where the exceptional conditions definitive of combat suffuse an everyday civic.
League of Canadian Poets blog

Author Bio

Danielle LaFrance: Danielle LaFrance is a poet based in Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories. She is the author of Species Branding (CUE Books, 2010) as well as the chapbook Pink Slip (Standard Ink & Copy Press, 2013). She co-curates About a Bicycle, a self-identified women's critical-theory journal.