Parrhesia by Timothy M. Bagwell

Tim Bagwell

Parrhesia is a Greek word that means “to speak candidly or to ask forgiveness for so speaking.”  It first appears in Greek literature in Euripides. It implies freedom of speech, as well as the obligation to speak the truth for the common good, even at personal risk.

The pages Timothy M. Bagwell’s Parrhesia (Anti-War Press, 67 pp.), are very different looking; they’re coil bound and are printed on “card stock.” It is beautiful and profusely illustrated book and contains a couple of dozen poems and many photographs

Bagwell is a Marine Corps veteran of the war in Vietnam. He was in Vietnam seven months, from January-July, 1969.  He had enlisted in the Marine Corps at 17 in June of 1968 and was out of Vietnam by age 19. “I do not believe war is anything but human choice embedded in lazy acquiescence,” he writes in this unusual book.

It is not easy to find a typical Bagwell poem to use as an example of what sort of poetry Bagwell has produced for this book.  But here is one example: part of “I died in Vietnam”:

I don’t know what day, what time, what killed me.

I didn’t know I died.

No blood spilled.

No pain screamed

No medic came.

No NVA bullet touched me.

No shrapnel broke my skin.

Jungle rot?  Yes, to the bone on both shins.

I died in Vietnam.

I can name it now—forty-four years later

Because I write hard poems recalling the foul film

My five senses seared deep inside my skull.

I died in Vietnam.

I used to think I had escaped.

I used to think I had survived—I didn’t.

This is one of Bagwell’spowerful, accessible poems that hit hard and take all readers as prisoners. You won’t be unscathed by this reading experience.

Near the end of this book is a full page photo of Tim Bagwell. He is an old man with a huge, fluffy white beard.  He’s wearing a black beret, and is surrounded by artifacts and shelves of books.  He looks like I wanted him to look—wise and grim and beyond war.

Good for him.  Thanks, Tim Bagwell, for a great book.

For ordering info, email antiwarpressindiana@gmail.com

—David Willson

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Paper Airplanes and Serial Lovers by p.a. delorenzi

Peter DeLorenzi is a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War, having served a 1968-69 tour of duty at Vandegrift Combat Base in Quang Tri Province in I Corps.  He lives, works, and writes on beautiful San Juan Island in the state of Washington.

DeLorenzi, a member of Vietnam Veterans of America, has a rare way with a turn of a phrase. He displays that to great advantage in Paper Airplanes and Serial Lovers: The Making of a Poet (Outskirts Press, 126 pp. $14.95, paper; $6.99, Kindle), a collection of fine poems.

Here is one from DeLorenzi’s prison years:

 

the bare concrete floor

meets my naked feet

time after silent time

as I traverse

my steel enclosure

and let my mind rappel down

the glass smooth face

of the distant cliffs

of freedom

This poem is called “Sleepwalk-1980.” That year, DeLorenzi writes, “found me on trial for my life for the killing of a man in Oregon that was assaulting a woman. It’s a long story.”

Peter DeLorenzi

He goes on to tell the reader that there are not a lot of events about prison life he cares to share with us. He does say, it’s “a tough way to wake up each morning. Stay free.”

That’s good advice for those among us who can envision being in such a place. I can, and I thank Peter DeLorenzi for his vivid poems warning of what can happen faster than you can imagine.

Read this book of powerful poems and appreciate how DeLorenzi has turned his experiences into these verses. He tells us he’s been doing his best “to be a good human being.”

There’s no greater goal for any of us. His poetry inspires me to do the same.

—David Willson

The Lice: Poems By W.S. Merwin

W. S. Merwin is well known for his Vietnam War poems. He was was born in 1927 and has been awarded pretty much every possible prize given to a poet, including a Pulitzer prize, a National Book Award, and the Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress. He also served two terms as U.S. Poet Laureate.

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Merwin’s The Lice, the poet’s 1967 response to “the atrocities of the Vietnam War and the national unrest of the Civil Rights Movement.”  Or so a blurb on the back cover of the latest edition of the book (Copper Canyon, 96 pp., $15, paper) tells us.

The book’s most important poem, “When the War is Over,” is printed on the back cover, following the blurb, so that the dullest reader will not miss it.

When the war is over

We will be proud of course the air will be

Good for breathing at last

The water will have been improved the salmon

And the silence of heaven will migrate more perfectly

The dead will think the living are worth it we will know

Who we are

And we will all enlist again

Not all of us. I was asked to re-enlist. My response was unequivocal. Not me, Sarge.

W.S. Merwin, at 90, is alive and living on Maui in a nature conservancy of rare palm trees that he planted. The cover of this beautiful book is a Larry Burrows Vietnam War photo showing smoke rising from a cluster of thatched Vietnamese hooches, following bombing and resulting fire from napalm in Viet Cong territory (a so-called free fire zone).

“The Asians Dying” and “For the Anniversary of My Death” both seriously hit home.  “The Asians Dying,” for reasons I don’t feel like explaining, and “For the Anniversary of My Death” because my doctors told me that 2017 I’d have been dead for at least five years due to the effects bone cancer caused by being exposed to Agent Orange. I don’t plan to live as long as W. S. Merwin, but one never knows.

As Merwin warns us in his poem “For a Coming Extinction,” “One must always pretend something among the dying.”  We can’t deny the obvious; we are all both the dying and among the dying.

This is the most beautiful book of Vietnam War poetry published in 1967—and again in 2017.  Buy it and read it.

—David Willson

The Smell of Light by Bill McCloud

Bill McCloud dropped out of college in his second semester and volunteered for the Army. He entered the service on the ninety-day delay program, and was in uniform from September 1967 to September 1970. He served in Vietnam from March 1968 to March 1969 as flight operations coordinator with the 147th Assault Support Helicopter Company (the Hillclimbers) on the airfield at Vung Tau.

McCloud—who teaches U.S. History at Rogers State University and is best known for his book, What Should We Tell Our Children about Vietnam?—arrived in Vietnam just as I was leaving. He was stationed in a spot I thought of as an in-country R&R center for Americans—and for the enemy.

I wondered as I started reading his new book of poetry, The Smell of the Light: Vietnam, 1968-1969 as Told through Personal Poems (Balkan Press, 158 pp., $14.99, paper; $4.99, Kindle), how long I had to wait before there was a mention of John Wayne. Page sixteen rewarded my patience with an entire John Wayne poem, one of the best poems of the Vietnam War and certainly one of the top two poems I’ve read dealing with John Wayne

I present Bill McCloud’s “John Wayne” here because it will give you an idea about the high quality of the poetry in this book and because it is pithy and well worth reading.

 

We keep hearing rumors

That they’re currently filming

A John Wayne movie about Vietnam

Everyone’s excited now about John Wayne

Everyone’s excited now about going to Vietnam

Now it’s a John Wayne war

 

That’s a hard poem to top.

McCloud, a member of Vietnam Veterans of America, used his letters home as source material for many of these poems. I believe he was writing better and higher-quality letters home than many of us. Mining my letters for poetic nuggets would be a painful task, fraught with horror.  Not something I’m tempted to do.

McCloud deals with other universal Vietnam War experiences such as shit burning, but he does not weigh his poems down with this stuff. That is a  strength of these fine poems.

This book of Vietnam War poetry sits very near the top of the heap. Right up there where the star would go if this were a Christmas tree.

Thanks, Bill McCloud, for this beautiful book.

—David Willson

Poems in the Keys of Life By Kerry “Doc” Pardue

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Kerry “Doc” Pardue is a 100 percent service-connected disabled veteran. He is a former combat medic who served with the Scouts in the 2/47th Infantry of the 9th Infantry Division in Vietnam from March 1968 to March 1969.

He tells us that he began to write poetry “to bring about healing” and “to deal with PTSD.” And that he learned two things in Vietnam: Men will die, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t change that. His writings have taught him, Pardue says, that “we did the right thing by going to Vietnam.”

When Kerry Pardue received his notification to report for his physical, he decided “it would be better for me to pick my field rather than be on the front lines as an infantryman.” Why he assumed that would happen, he doesn’t explain. The recruiter suggested that he go for medic training, and that most likely he’d be stationed in some nice hospital. Sounds perfect, doesn’t it? The recruiter didn’t inform Pardue that medics also served with the infantry in the thick of the fighting.

As a result of his decision to become a medic, the poems in Poems in the Keys of Life: Reflections of a Combat Medic (PublishAmerica, 100 pp., $29.95, hardcover; $14.99, paper; $9.95, Kindle) are not about serving in that nice hospital, but about combat. There are titles such as “In the Heat of Battle,” “Playing Chicken with Mortars,” “Gooks in the Wire,” and “Daddy, Why Didn’t You Tell Me About War?”

Here’s a representative poem, “Happy Thanksgiving”

May your turkey be plump

Your potatoes without lumps

Your gravy nice and smooth;

And may your pumpkin pie

Stay off your thighs

I wish all Vietnam War poetry was this straightforward. It is not.

I respect honesty and good old American values. That’s what the reader gets in this small book of poetry.

Kerry Pardue’s website is kerrypardue247.com

—David Willson

Prisms of War by Joe Labriola

Joe Labriola served with the First Marines in Vietnam and received an honorable discharge. He also received the Bronze Star and a Purple Heart and is confined to a wheelchair. He has been incarcerated for thirty years.

His book of poetry, Prisms of War (Schulman Press, 83 pp., $15, paper), is divided into three sections: “The War Poems,” “The Prison Poems,” and “The Love Poems.” Each section has about a dozen poems; many contain strong images and words worth saying. I liked the prison poems the best and the love poems least. The book itself is a beautiful production with an eye-catching cover.

“The Bush” is a fairly typical poem, although its shorter than many.

The Bush

We awoke to the sound

of the helicopter blades swooshing

and parting the grass in circles.

Dawn came up fast, too fast.

The light burned tired eyes

as we locked and loaded

wondering what hell awaited today.

The praying lamp was lit

for those who still had Gods

while the Sergeant checked quietly

making sure each man has ammo.

Nothing more needed to be said.

Nothing more could be said.

It was a day for killing.

Joe Labriola

Most of the poems—like this one—are plain spoken. The love poems get a bit more flowery, as love poems sometimes do.

If you like to read Vietnam War poetry, there are a few pieces in this book that are worth your time and effort. These poems are not doggerel, far from it.

To order, write to Joe Lab Defense, PO Box 84, Hopedale, MA 01747 or go to freejoelab.com

—David Willson

Who is a Hero by Donald E. Pearce, Sr.

 

Donald E. Pearce Sr.’s Who is a Hero: A Collection of Patriotic Poems (CreateSpace, 34 pp., $10.99, paper; Kindle, $3.49) is more a pamphlet than a book. It is an aggregation of reproduced Vietnam War artifacts such as manipulated images of a folded American flag in a triangle box with a rose on the top, similar to the one I was given after my father was consigned to the ground in the National Cemetery in Arizona. The image is accompanied by the words to a verse entitled “Lament for a Hero.”

I asked myself what my parents would think of it. Easy answer: They would have liked it. The words “God keep you in his loving arms forever” would have had a huge impact on them.

Every verse in this colorful, mostly red-white-and-blue pamphlet is supported by a full page of artwork.  “Heroes,” for example has an image retrieved from the internet of the POW/MIA flag.  “Heroes” ends with the line, “For we will never, never, ever, forget!!!

I am remiss for not mentioning the color scheme of this book again as it overwhelms the reader. Red, white, blue—and black. The theme, though, is not forgetting, but the fear that we will forget if we are not constantly reminded.

Late in this small book protesters are called out. As in: “Their families we vow, we will protect, from protesters who don’t, have any respect.”

“Who is a hero?  My Dad.  If Hitler had won that terrible war, you’d now be a slave, and nothing more.  So the next old man, that you see, don’t forget, He might be a hero, an American vet.”

This small work powerfully expresses fear of forgetting the dead. In fact, it practically creates a cult of the dead. It’s difficult o know what to do with this work, but I believe it expresses the thoughts of many veterans.

The author, a life member of Vietnam Veterans of America, was born and raised in Massachusetts and is the fifth child of nine. His family has a proud history of military service. Three brothers served during the Vietnam War. Donald Pearce is Assistant State Captain for Massachusetts for the Patriot Guard Riders, which helps him express his patriotism and his love of motorcycles.

Books don’t get more sincere than this one.

The author’s website is whoisahero.com

—David Willson