Six Vietnamese Poets

This bilingual edition, "Six Vietnamese Poets," brings together for the first time the works of six writers who came to maturity during the American War in Vietnam, three men and three women. What will you find in this book?-the richness and diversity of Vietnamese life and literature from an array of poems that range from free verse to romantic lyric to traditional classic forms. The book features poets from North and South, men and women, combat soldiers and poet-soldiers writing of life in Vietnam through the last four decades of the 20th century.

"Speaking to the HeartAfter a long night up writing poems,
a streak of sunlight leapt into my room.
I ran to the yard,
running as if I were a child,
>footprints breaking the earth's first dew,
chest brushing softly the short grass.
Earth and sky seeped into me like wine.
Startled,
I saw my heart in the shape of a ploughshareresting on the earth's shoulder,
the heart thumping, steadily ploughing into time."

-Lam Thi My Da