In the Shadow of the Annamese Mountains

A Note from the AuthorI 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 discussion I had read from and about my 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 service 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....