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1988

Format:	Book
Author:	Komunyakaa, Yusef.
Title:	Dien Cai Dau / Yusef Komunyakaa.
Edition:	First edition.
Publisher, Date:	Middletown, Connecticut : Wesleyan University Press, [1988] ©1988
Description:	viii, 63 pages ; 21 cm.
Series:	Wesleyan poetry Wesleyan poetry.
Subjects:	Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- Poetry.
Notes:	494914 ; *494919
LCCN:	88005761
ISBN:	0819521639
Other Number:	17731831
System Availability:	2
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# Local items:	2
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Dien cai dau (``crazy''), a Vietnamese term for Americans during the war, is an apt description of the GI experience as Komunyakaa outlines it in this, his third collection of poems. So finely honed are Komunyakaa's images, so faultless his craft, so true his vision, that the reader sees precisely what the poet recalls: insect infestations; snakes slithering through elephant grass; soldiers cleaning M-16s; booby traps, ambushes, near misses; and always the memories of home-- family, girlfriends or wives, good times. Komunyakaa covers the last days of the war and its aftermath (the boat people, the MIAs, the Vietnam vet at home, and the memorial to those who fought and died there-- the Wall) without pointing an accusing finger at anyone. Instead, he simply reports, with little overt emotion, scenes of the day-to-day-- sometimes heroic, always ``crazy''-- in a way that allows him to elicit fear, pain, anger, and, indeed, guilt within the reader, a technique that underscores the horror of the war. A powerful must-read for those who have forgotten those days a little over a decade ago, and for those too young to have witnessed them. JE.

Summary

Poetry that precisely conjures images of the war in Vietnam by an award-winning author.

Table of Contents

	Camouflaging the Chimera	p. 3
	Tunnels	p. 5
	Somewhere Near Phu Bai	p. 7
	Starlight Scope Myopia	p. 8
	Red Pagoda	p. 10
	A Greenness Taller Than Gods	p. 11
	The Dead at Quang Tri	p. 12
	Hanoi Hannah	p. 13
	Roll Call	p. 15
	Fragging	p. 16
	"You and I Are Disappearing"	p. 17
	2527th Birthday of the Buddha	p. 18
	Re-creating the Scene	p. 19
	Night Muse and Mortar Round	p. 21
	One More Loss to Count	p. 22
	Sappers	p. 24
	Nude Pictures	p. 25
	We Never Know	p. 26
	A Break from the Bush	p. 27
	Seeing in the Dark	p. 28
	Tu Do Street	p. 29
	Communique	p. 30
	The Edge	p. 32
	Donut Dollies	p. 34
	Prisoners	p. 35
	Jungle Surrender	p. 37
	Eyeball Television	p. 39
	The One-legged Stool	p. 40
	Short-timer's Calender	p. 43
	Thanks	p. 44
	To Have Danced with Death	p. 46
	Report from the Skull's Diorama	p. 47
	Combat Pay for Jody	p. 49
	Sunset Threnody	p. 51
	After the Fall	p. 53
	Saigon Bar Girls, 1975	p. 54
	Toys in a Field	p. 56
	Boat People	p. 57
	Dui Boi, Dust of Life	p. 58
	Missing in Action	p. 59
	Losses	p. 61
	Between Days	p. 62
	Facing It	p. 63

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