The Vietnam War was a complex and controversial conflict that deeply affected the lives of millions of people, including many poets and writers who used their craft to express the horrors and struggles of war. Some of the most famous Vietnam War poems were written by poets who experienced the war firsthand, while others were written by poets who sought to capture the experiences and emotions of soldiers and civilians caught up in the conflict.
One of the most famous Vietnam War poems is "In the Lake of the Woods" by Tim O'Brien, a Vietnam War veteran and author who wrote about his experiences in the conflict in several works of fiction and non-fiction. In this poem, O'Brien reflects on the psychological toll of war, describing how it can leave deep scars on the mind and soul that can never be fully healed. He writes:
"In the lake of the woods,
I am the one who walks alone,
With the ghosts of all my brothers,
In the lake of the woods."
Another famous Vietnam War poem is "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen, a British soldier and poet who fought in World War I and died just days before the Armistice. In this powerful and haunting poem, Owen describes the horrors of war and the devastating effects of mustard gas on the soldiers who were exposed to it. He writes:
"Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge."
One of the most famous Vietnam War poems by an American poet is "The Man He Killed" by Thomas Hardy, which was written in the early 20th century but remains relevant today as a powerful indictment of the futility and waste of war. In this poem, Hardy imagines the thoughts and feelings of a soldier who has killed another man in battle, and reflects on the tragedy of two lives cut short by the violence of war. He writes:
"Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have set us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!
But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place."
These are just a few examples of the many powerful and moving Vietnam War poems written by famous poets. Whether they were written by veterans of the conflict or by poets who sought to capture the experiences of those who lived through it, these poems offer a poignant and thought-provoking reflection on the human cost of war.
Lifting The Darkness: American and Vietnamese War Poets
Much of his postwar work has been in collaboration with musicians and graphic artists as well as poets; much also reaches back to translations of other sources, primitive and mythic, like a poetic sequence on Ishi, the last member of his Native American tribe, and a dramatization of the epic of Gilgamesh. In war, the motivations of the soldiers can never be simple. Some folk tales are also told through ca dao, ca dao often has analogies drawn between humans, animals, and plant life. But this is not my country. It is "long cadence" when people stop and dwell on the sound when they recite the line.
Six War Poems by Vietnam Vets
What I witnessed and participated in was the random destruction of livestock, civilian homes and sometimes whole hamlets, the detention and often brutal interrogation of civilians, and the routine killing of unarmed men, women and children by the American military and its Saigon ally. They came in hissing, cannons twice as fast as the old gunships. In Vietnam I prayed fervently shivering uncontrollably in the mud. Simple scenery, accentuated at certain points, gently sketched but irresistible. When John Balaban volunteered to go to Vietnam in 1967, he thought to bring his intense anti-war convictions to the site where they mattered most.
Vietnamese poetry
South Vietnamese Prime Minister Diem is overthrown. An additional stricture was that the two central couplets should be antithetical. A treeline opens out onto paddies quartered by dikes, a moon in each, and in the center, the hedged island of a village floats in its own time, ribboned with smoke. With just four rhyming verses, the riddle sets up two linear equations with two unknowns. Look at him: eyes open, moaning, wheezing. To read a poem, click on the title. His new book, Undress, She Said, will be published by Four Way Books in 2022.
Vietnam War Poetry
Armed Forces Recruitment Day Albuquerque High School, 1962 After the Navy, the Air Force, and the Army, Sgt. Rhyming syllables are most essential to the musical quality of the poem. He reported the dilemma of black soldiers and their relations with Vietnamese prostitutes on Tu Do Street, a location well known to American G. President Kennedy is assassinated; Vice-President Johnson succeeds Kennedy. The people Balaban met in Vietnam, those who were trying to mitigate the conditions of war, as well as various dissidents and people on the scene from many nations, form an abundant subject in his poetry and prose.
At the Vietnam War Memorial by Robert Patrick Dana
Visual rhythm is the most important thing, because through it, the reader can follow the analytic process to figure out the meaning of the poem. Duc Thanh stretches the comparison with a lover further, comparing the reunification of North and South Vietman to the meeting of lovers on a riverbank: I remember the path we walked to the river Where we came together and talked. I can't believe I can't be good I can't work hard enough I can't Just be easy You're never going to be bad enough For us to reject Never Kiddo We love you too Even the door gunner with the shakes Earl? Sleep is permitted in shifts only, and mostly while standing up. His fortcoming memoir is Nothing Left to Drag Home: The Siege at Lao Bao During Operation Dewey Canyon II—Lam Son 719, as Told by an Artilleryman Who Survived It. Duc Thanh gives us a very literal account of his passion. Castillo, the Marine Corps recruiter, got a standing ovation when he walked up to the microphone and said proudly that unlike the rest, all he could promise was a pack, a rifle, and a damned hard time. Another line by Bác mẹ sinh ra phận ốc nhồi, Đêm ngày lăn lóc đám cỏ hôi.
The Poetry of the Vietnam War
I woke up this morning The sun was gone. Willie comes near, Grabs the blood soaked belt, Jonesy pissed he missed it— But all his gear is missing. Poetry or folksongs often have "láy" words, whereby due to the repetition of the whole word or an element of it, "láy" word, when pronounced, two enunciations of the two words will coincide complete "láy" or come close incomplete "láy" creating a series of harmony, rendering the musical quality of poetry both multi-colored and elegant. She holds my face to her breasts, rocks me. The Thousand Yard Stare Why Can't I Write A Happy Poem? Even as the poems express despair—at New Year, Tuong Hac Long writes, "At thirty-four I feel lost and hopeless. I blow the dust off my hands but it flies back in my face.
