In the Shadow of the Annamese Mountains

In the Shadow of the Annamese MountainsA Note from the Author"I was first introduced to the idea of political poetry on October 18, 1970, about midnight, in an all night Harvard Square corner bookstore. A few months before that encounter I had returned from the war in Viet Nam. To say that I was confused and angry is an understatement. I was also somewhat lost. Then on that fateful night I found this wonderful collection of poems by Denise Levertov that captured her journey to North Viet

A Note from the Author"I was first introduced to the idea of political poetry on October 18, 1970, about midnight, in an all-night Harvard Square corner bookstore. A few months before that encounter I had returned from the war in Viet Nam. To say that I was confused and angry is an understatement. I was also somewhat lost. Then on that fateful night I found this wonderful collection of poems by Denise Levertov that captured her journey to North Viet Nam as a peace activist. This was the first serious ÒdiscussionÓ I had read from and about ÒmyÓ war. And true to what Robert Bly considers effective political poetry, Levertov used the personal to open up the universal. I was captured, and unlike my response to military Òservice,Ó I did not want to escape. Instead, I sought out more of her work and other poets and, eventually, began to write my own poems...."