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    Song of Napalm: Poems
    Song of Napalm: Poems
    Song of Napalm: Poems
    Ebook70 pages44 minutes

    Song of Napalm: Poems

    By Robert Stone and Bruce Weigl

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    About this ebook

    This collection of poems by Vietnam veteran Bruce Weigl provides “a searing memento of the war that refuses to be forgotten” (San Francisco Chronicle).
     
    “Song of Napalm is more than a collection of beautifully wrought, heart-wrenching and often very funny poems. It’s a narrative, the story of an American innocent’s descent into hell and his excruciating return to life on the surface. Weigl may have written the best novel so far about the Vietnam War, and along the way a dozen truly memorable poems.” —Russell Banks
     
     “Song of Napalm is one of the best books of any genre about the war—and about human endurance.” —The Kansas City Star
     
    “Weigl bears true witness to the reality of war, and his work takes its place alongside the strongest war poetry of this century.” —The Hudson Review
     
    “Reading these poems I am struck with something close to awe for the resilience of the human body and the human heart. I can only compare Song of Napalm with the remarkable poetry of Wilfred Owen and Robert Graves. I cherish Bruce Weigl’s poetry as a great gift.” —Larry Heinemann, author of Paco’s Story
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateAug 1, 1991
    ISBN9780802195173
    Song of Napalm: Poems
    Author

    Robert Stone

    ROBERT STONE (1937–2015) was the acclaimed author of eight novels and two story collections, including Dog Soldiers, winner of the National Book Award, and Bear and His Daughter, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His memoir, Prime Green, was published in 2007.

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    • 5/5
      This poetry collection revolves around Weigl's experiences with the First Air Calvary Division during the Vietnam war. Although written many years after the fact there the author's remembrances have directness and clarity. Reliving these experiences has not been easy for Wiegl or as he told Charles Simic--that in Vietnam he lost his soul but found his voice. Weigl takes on what is painful to remember by looking it straight in the face. On the front blurb are these lines from his poem--The last lie:Some guy in the miserable convoyraised up in the back of our open truckand threw a can of C rations at a childwho called into the rumble for food.He didn't toss the can, he wound up and hung iton the child's forehead and she was stunnedbackwards into the dust of our trucks. What makes this collection remarkable is that for the most part the rest of the book matches this kind of remembrance in the same clear-eyed tones mixing irony, sadness and confusion. His poems have a quality about them that though maybe not always being the stuff of nightmares--still seem full of the regret of many sleepless nights--keeping in mind it is that of a middle aged poet looking back at himself as a much younger man. Song of Napalm compares very favorably at least in some respects to Wilfred Owen's World War I poetry. I found much of this work a revelation.

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