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The Moon Reflected Fire
Of The Moon Reflected Fire and its subject, the Vietnam War, poet James Tate "These are trenchant, wrenching poems. With artistry and honesty they perform an inquest into war and its corrosive after effects."
80 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 7, 2018
Some really great stuff in here. Read this for school and was not disappointed. My faves were Short Timer, Los Desartres De La Guerra, A Bar in Argos, and Homer Does Not Mention Him but those weren’t the only great ones. I read about 50-60 poetry collections a year (graduate student in poetry) and this is easily one of the top ones I read this year. Lines like “I thought maybe / he was killing all the ones he’d missed” & “how our bones knew what we’d done” from Infantry Assault or advice like “don’t walk behind the radioman / or the squad leader on patrol; / they ambush the center of the column” and “the round that gets you you won’t hear” from Doc made this a memorable read.
June 10, 2019
The first poem, "Night Ambush," is simply classic. Stunning in a quiet, understated way. This is what poetry is about.
The book reflects Anderson's tour as a Marine medic in Vietnam. These poems offer some of the detail and horror of that war and how it clings to those who fought it long after the war ended.
In addition, the author reflects on war through poems about "The Iliad" and the Spanish painter Goya.
Powerful and sobering. This is what poetry is, and should be, not the claptrap made by and for academics.
The book reflects Anderson's tour as a Marine medic in Vietnam. These poems offer some of the detail and horror of that war and how it clings to those who fought it long after the war ended.
In addition, the author reflects on war through poems about "The Iliad" and the Spanish painter Goya.
Powerful and sobering. This is what poetry is, and should be, not the claptrap made by and for academics.
October 5, 2012
(3.5 Read for the Loft Mentorship Program 2012-2013)
In many ways, I loved what Anderson intended with language and bringing in broader subjects. As a reader and re-reader of Homer, a teacher and student, I really enjoyed that mythological narrative being juxtaposed with the Viet Nam war. I found myself wishing for less juxtaposition and more integration, more braiding within a single poem or even a section.
There were also moments in the briefer, tighter poems (a style I prefer) where I wanted to rearrange the lines for more effective impact. For instance, the poem "Xin Loi" is one of the most tender and beautiful of the book, and it ends on the image: "A monsoon cloud hangs above, / its belly torn open on a mountain." It's a fantastic and fitting image, but it takes us away and above the central visual of the poem, which is a set of parents holding their dead son, longing for the narrator to find some way to bring him back. Instead, ending on the previous couplet ("There is nothing to say, / nothing in my medical bag, nothing in my mind.") would change how the reader reflects on the poem, change the tone even. The image as it stands is beautiful; I wouldn't remove it but simply move it. Trade couplets. The following poem "Purification" is equally haunting, a fifteen-year-old giving a man a bath, how terrifying and awful and it ends: "There is blood still under my fingernails / from the last man who died in my arms. / I press her nipple to my lips, / feel a warm stream of sweetness. / I want to be this child's child. / I will sleep for the first time in days." I would cut that last line--it takes us away from the horror of the situation, allows it to be about escape in a way that is less poignant that the escape of becoming a child again. Leaving it with becoming her child leaves us with the terribleness of her exploitation along with the terribleness of his deeds, both laden with regret.
The last lines in the book are a fantastic closing for the whole:
"There are questions which grow in me like embryos.
I live in dread someone asking them.
Like the earnest young woman at the reading:
If it had not been for the war,
would you have written?
I think,
look at the carpet we have woven with the hair of the dead."
In many ways, I loved what Anderson intended with language and bringing in broader subjects. As a reader and re-reader of Homer, a teacher and student, I really enjoyed that mythological narrative being juxtaposed with the Viet Nam war. I found myself wishing for less juxtaposition and more integration, more braiding within a single poem or even a section.
There were also moments in the briefer, tighter poems (a style I prefer) where I wanted to rearrange the lines for more effective impact. For instance, the poem "Xin Loi" is one of the most tender and beautiful of the book, and it ends on the image: "A monsoon cloud hangs above, / its belly torn open on a mountain." It's a fantastic and fitting image, but it takes us away and above the central visual of the poem, which is a set of parents holding their dead son, longing for the narrator to find some way to bring him back. Instead, ending on the previous couplet ("There is nothing to say, / nothing in my medical bag, nothing in my mind.") would change how the reader reflects on the poem, change the tone even. The image as it stands is beautiful; I wouldn't remove it but simply move it. Trade couplets. The following poem "Purification" is equally haunting, a fifteen-year-old giving a man a bath, how terrifying and awful and it ends: "There is blood still under my fingernails / from the last man who died in my arms. / I press her nipple to my lips, / feel a warm stream of sweetness. / I want to be this child's child. / I will sleep for the first time in days." I would cut that last line--it takes us away from the horror of the situation, allows it to be about escape in a way that is less poignant that the escape of becoming a child again. Leaving it with becoming her child leaves us with the terribleness of her exploitation along with the terribleness of his deeds, both laden with regret.
The last lines in the book are a fantastic closing for the whole:
"There are questions which grow in me like embryos.
I live in dread someone asking them.
Like the earnest young woman at the reading:
If it had not been for the war,
would you have written?
I think,
look at the carpet we have woven with the hair of the dead."
November 11, 2008
The major theme in this book is Viet Nam. Anderson is brave in his vivid descriptions of what he did, things he saw, and how he felt.
from "Short Timer"
Twelve hours before his plane was to lift off for home
he was sitting in the EM club
slugging down Filipino beer.
A sniper round rang through the tin roof,
knocked him off his stool, a near complete flip
before he hit the floor.
Next thing I knew we were lugging him
through the sand toward the sick bay;
him bucking and screaming,
me trying to shield the spurting head,
the sniper bearing down on us.
At times it was hard to read some of the poems because they were so grafic. Since I am a lover of Weigl's "Song of Napalm" I assumed I would enjoy this...I did, it's right up there with Weigl himself.
from "Short Timer"
Twelve hours before his plane was to lift off for home
he was sitting in the EM club
slugging down Filipino beer.
A sniper round rang through the tin roof,
knocked him off his stool, a near complete flip
before he hit the floor.
Next thing I knew we were lugging him
through the sand toward the sick bay;
him bucking and screaming,
me trying to shield the spurting head,
the sniper bearing down on us.
At times it was hard to read some of the poems because they were so grafic. Since I am a lover of Weigl's "Song of Napalm" I assumed I would enjoy this...I did, it's right up there with Weigl himself.
September 26, 2012
Such a gritty, powerful, horrifying treatment of the Vietnam War & its personal aftermath, with compelling looks (in middle sections) at Spain's conflict with Napoleon & the war glorified in the Iliad.
July 9, 2008
Of all the works I've read that concerned the Vietnam War, this touched me the most.
March 17, 2016
Not sure how to rate this one.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews