In Country
Bombshelter Press, 1994 190pp
ISBN: 0-941017-28-1
Vietnam from two perspectives: the footsoldier's point of view and the perspective of a civilian working and dying in the moral chaos of Saigon.
The Authors
- David Widup
- is a gifted poet and song writer. What characterizes his work is a love of plain speech and a moving personal search for redemption. His work plunges us into an intensely physical world expressing the hopes, frustrations, doubts and desires of a man wholly sensitive to his surroundings. A fine, intimate perspective.
- Michael Andrews
- is co-founder/publisher/editor with Jack Grapes of Bombshelter Press and ONTHEBUS, living, for the moment, in L.A. and getting by. He has published 7 books of poetry, and 3 fine print poetry/photography portfolios. He has traveled around the world twice, spent time in Vietnam and Iran, rode a motorcycle to Peru, ran the San Juan River and recently spent a month in the Peruvian Amazon. His leg was seriously damaged in a motorcycle accident in 1987. He is currently working on two novels, a book of speculative philosophy, and creating photographic and poetry montages as digital images. He works as a computer programmer/analyst. He worked as a civilian in Vietnam from 1969 through 1971.
Review
Songs of innocence, songs of cynicism: an interconnectedness of Michael Andrews and David Widup's writing about fear, racism, drugs, killing, lies, mystery, home. In Country, an arresting companion to Apocalypse Now and Platoon, has a wealth of illuminated images that both shock and transform our understanding. I am fascinated by these two poets' absolute honesty in stating their lost innocence in Vietnam in compelling straight lines that examine the history of America's involvement, its nightmarish, surreal, human, and dirty journey. The inhumanity of war and its victims is portrayed with depth and complexity. David Widup writes, "The poet's heart: / what the guns and lies/ could not kill."
Harry E. Northup
