Uniform by Lisa Stice

Uniform Reviews

• 
  Eric Chandler

  My wife and I met while we were both stationed at Kunsan Air Base in Korea. There were a million things I didn’t have to explain to her because she was in the Air Force like me. After reading the book Uniform by Lisa Stice, I realize that I took too much for granted. Stice’s poetry made me feel what it was like to be isolated, confused, and worried as a spouse of someone in the military. I bet my wife felt a lot of the same emotions when I went downrange, even though she had time in uniform.
  
  Much of Stice’s book is familiar to me and would be to anybody who served. The love-hate thing with Uncle Sam. The cycles of training and deployment. I find myself nodding in familiarity, but seeing it from a whole different perspective. A new perspective that should’ve been apparent to me for 20 years, but wasn’t until now.
  
  In “Memo to the Wives” and “Corps Value” there’s a line that says childcare will not be provided. Events happen that should be a good deal to attend, but you can’t go because nobody can watch the kids. Nothing says service more than a Catch-22.
  
  Stice writes “Where are you?” in a couple poems when hearing about accidents and injuries, hoping that her husband isn’t involved. “In Training” and “The Pit Opened Up” brought this up well. I’m not sure I understood how terrifying it is to just not know.
  
  “Family Readiness”: I wrote a letter to my family to be opened upon my death. This poem made me realize what it must be like to know the letter exists and prepare for the possibility that it might be needed.
  
  “Family Day”: Attendance not mandatory / but expected. Mandatory fun is definitely part of military life.
  
  There’s a one-two punch in the book that had the biggest impact on me. In “Deployment Notices” Stice shares some platitudes that people say like, Some time we’ll have to / have you over for dinner. Sure, people say things that are well meaning, but when they don’t follow through, it sucks. My favorite poem in the book is “Words From Friends.” It’s the knockout punch of this combo. The last line is just killer. Your friends probably aren’t being intentionally mean when they say things, but that doesn’t matter. When you’re a raw nerve, unthinking comments have the same effect as malice. Buy the book. I’d buy it just for “Words From Friends.”
  
  In “The Night Before Deployment,” Stice talks about her need to trust in the training her husband has received as he leaves. Then she laments, but where was my training? She had on-the-job training, I suppose. But you can learn from Lisa Stice. Call it your own training. Call it what you want. Just go read Uniform.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Chaun Ballard

  Uniform is a wonderful debut book of poems that gives insight into the life of a wife & mother and a husband who is always present though he is physically distant (married to the Marine Corps). There are poems of heartbreak and poems that dare to hope. It is a contemporary tale like that of Penelope and Odysseus told through the voice of a poet who knows firsthand the struggles faced by a family enlisted.
  
  I woke up at 4 am with a real need to re-read Uniform. I was glad I did. These poems are vulnerable and brave—I remembered again why I love this collection. It is because I have not read anything like it before.
• 
  Jayant Kashyap

  It is an amazing insight into a ‘Uniform’ed life. It talks of so many things that one would hardly know about the military, even the fact that a military personnel’s hat is called a ‘cover’. Lisa has stayed true to her endeavours in her first book, now there’s a little time before I finish reading her ‘Permanent Change of Station’.
• 
  D.A. Gray

  Stice's poetry immerses the reader into the experience of living in two worlds, the warrior's life and the civilian life - a double existence few understand. With Uniform there is still a sheet of glass separating the two worlds but Stice has wiped the surface clean. One of the clearest glimpses into these worlds.
• 
  Charlie Sherpa

  Lisa Stice is my favorite kind of war poet: One who interrogates differences among civilian, service member, and spouse. One who offers explanations, as well as explorations. One who constructs bridges with curiosity and compassion, but who remains clear-eyed and short-form in her engineering.
  
  Stice is a U.S. Marine spouse. An equal partner in patriotism. A practical shield-maiden. In a poem titled "On Duty," she writes …

  walk on your Marine's left side
  
  the protected place
  opposite the theoretical sword
  
  you may hold his left hand
  if he's not in uniform […]
  
  be his shining medal
  always faithful
  
  to love all things holy
  in this sacred institution
  
  be respectful and kind
  in your wooden fearlessness.

  Reading her words, she's definitely someone want you'd want to have fighting on your side—if not in same foxhole, then at the same table at one of those insufferable military formal dinners. She's got a keen eye for observed detail and custom, a bayonet-sharp sense of snark, and a field-stripped ability with the written word and line break. I want to sit with her, near the punch bowl, and lob thought grenades into the night.
  
  "I am married to the Marine Corps," Stice briefs in a one-page introduction to her poetry collection "Uniform," published earlier this year by Aldrich Press. "It's quite a different sort of marriage than the one with my husband, who was already a Marine when we married […]" She continues:

  The Corps culture promotes silence and leaves little to no room for compromise. I understand that some silences are justified within the Corps, like not disclosing where and when my husband will deploy […] Other silences I do not understand. For Marines and their families, speaking up about frustrations is viewed as unsupportive and, sometimes, as unpatriotic. My husband can even face consequences for my speaking up.
  
  I would like to begin the long-needed conversation … [...]

  [For a full review, visit the Red Bull Rising blog at:
  http://www.redbullrising.com/2016/10/... ]
• 
  Kathleen Rodgers

  In the introduction to the new collection, Uniform (Aldrich Press 2016), poet Lisa Stice says, “For Marines and their families, speaking up about frustrations is viewed as unsupportive and, sometimes, as unpatriotic. My husband can even face consequences for my speaking up.”
  And so begins what Lisa calls “the long-needed conversation.”
  
  The moment I heard about this new book over at the Military Spouse Book Review, I knew I wanted to read it. Although my husband, an Air Force fighter pilot, retired twenty-five years ago, I still identify myself as a military spouse. Like they say, once a military spouse, always a military spouse. If I could add a subtitle to this book, it would read, Uniform: How to Make Do. Because the military lifestyle requires that we make do with what we have…and sometimes with what we don’t have.
  
  You don’t have to be a poetry snob or aficionado to appreciate this collection. Both the military spouse and the service member will relate to each offering. As for civilians, I highly recommend Uniform to those who care about our military and wish to understand our culture.
• 
  Philip Elliott

  This book is even more beautiful on the inside, and extremely well-structured. The poems, all centered around the theme of being a military spouse and its often oppressive, confusing and isolating consequences, are succinct, clever, musical and unflinching. This is a damn good debut, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a substantial and engrossing read.