This first-ever collection of the extraordinary poetry to emerge from the Vietnam War is a milestone of both literature and history--a stunningly varied and vivid meditation on one of the most shattering events in America's recent past.
The Vietnam War, America's longest -- and in some ways most devastating -- conflict, changed the course of a generation and left millions wondering, "Why?" Here, in the first-ever collection of poetry from both sides of the war, Vietnamese and American poets use their art to ponder this haunting question. Chronologically arranged to mirror the progression of the war, From Both Sides Now brings together a wide variety of opposing views, with poetry by American and Vietnamese soldiers, orphans, widows, priests, monks, political figures, and antiwar protesters. In addition to including extraordinary works from well-known poets such as Bruce Weigl, Margaret Atwood, Yusef Komunyakaa, Sharon Olds, Robert Bly, Allen Ginsberg, Grace Paley, Philip Levine, and W. S. Merwin, editor Phillip Mahony has scoured the globe to find amazing and, in some cases, never-before-published poetry by North and South Vietnamese soldiers and poets and the first postwar generation of Vietnamese-Americans. Together the words of these poets cohere to a modern, many-voiced epic about the most important event in recent American history. Poignant and accessible, the poems collected here will leave an indelible impact on all readers -- not only poetry lovers but everyone who lived through, and those who want to learn about, the Vietnam War.