Carrying the Darkness: The Poetry of the Vietnam War

by W.D. Ehrhart (Editor)

This is one of the very best anthologies of poetry to come out of the Vietnam War. The poets here have given their experiences an energy that transcends time and grabs your heart. Read these poems and know that you will never be the same.

Genres: Poetry, War

320 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1985

Reviews

[Anna Gibson · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of poetry, primarily by Vietnam veterans but occasionally by authors of varying backgrounds. W.D. Ehrhart's poems are (not surprisingly) the most memorable in the collection.

It's hard to rate these because some are striking, others are a slog to get through. For some reason, all of the extremely relevant biographical information for each poet is pushed to the back of the book instead of being printed under each chapter title. It made it annoying to flip back and forth each time.

Not surprisingly given how readily this information is available in war memoirs and other firsthand documentation, a good number of the poems discuss war crimes and atrocities--the rape and murder of civilians being chief among them.

A book that, given the editor's experiences, I wish had an introduction.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetry by mostly veterans. Lots of big names and plenty of poets you've not heard of but perhaps should. I wish I had known about this collection 20 years ago, make that almost 40 years ago.

[Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection is comparable to Owen and Rosenberg from WWI. One of my favorite poems is "Time on Target".