WAR POETRY

ENGLISH 685:002  /  SUSAN TICHY  /  FALL 2005


WEEK 15: DEC 8: VIETNAM WAR: AFTERMATH

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Though composition dates overlap with poems on the reading list for the last two weeks, this week's selection takes a distinctly retrospective point of view. Combatants on all sides, resisters, relief workers, and war children are represented.

READING:

Mahony
: Christian Langworthy 152, 155, 260, Barbara Tran 153, Horace Coleman 155, Chris Taniguchi 230, Thien-bao Thuc Phi 256, 265, Bao-Long Chu 257, Mong Lan 258, 264,  R.A. Streitmatter/Tran Trong Dat 261-262, Yusef Komunyakaa 263, Truong Tran 264, Kevin Bowan 267, Bruce Weigl 269-270, Nguyen Quang Thieu 271, Du Tu Le 273, Greg Kuzma 274, John Balaban 275.

Bowen & Weigl
: Van Le 42, Tran Dang Khoa 66-69, Pham Tien Duat 70-71, 90-91, John Balaban 87-90, Huu Thinh 95-98, George Evans 100-106, Marilyn McMahon 114-120, Kevin Bowan 134, 246-251, Yusef Komunyakaa 172-175, 244-245 Bruce Weigl 241. The section called "Mountains and Rivers: Works from Vietnam" includes a few Poems from Captured Documents, a few Ca Dao (a genre of folk poetry), and non-war poetry. In this book you will also find excerpts from memoirs of "going back" by Lynda Van Devanter (a nurse) and Lady Borton (a humanitarian worker).

Bookstore photocopies:
Alice Notley: "White Phosphorous" (poem, in first packet of readings)
D.F. Brown: "The Other Half of Everything" (poem, a separate packet)
James Tatum: "Mourners and Monuments" (essay on the Vietnam Wall, a separate packet)

Ehrhart: Thomas Brush, Marylin Butler, Joseph Cady, David Mura

Two hypertext poems:
My Boyfriend Came Back from the War, by Olia Lialina (Russian): Chechnya
rice, Jenny Weight (Australian): Vietnam

Optional:

At John Balaban's web site you can listen to a few minutes of his Ca Dao recordings, as well as to some of the poet's commentary on the poems. http://www.johnbalaban.com/