Obscenities

by Michael Casey

A reissuing of Obscenities, the debut collection of poems by Michael Casey.

Genres: Poetry

68 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Michael Casey (1947-) is a poet who is known for his poetry about the Vietnam War. He has published several collections of poetry.

Michael Casey received his B.S. in Physics from Lowell Technological Institute in 1968. He was drafted into the U.S. Army and served as a military policeman, both in the United States and in Vietnam. After the war, he began his M.S. in physics at State University of New York Buffalo, but left the program to become a full-time poet.

Reviews

[Jon]

Excellent narrative poetry with a fantastic voice. Would recommend.

[Ellice]

Stanley Kunitz wrote the foreword to this 1972 volume, and apparently really appreciated these poems. I didn’t care for them quite as much as Kunitz did, but I found them to be an interesting window into the time (the early 1970s) and place (Vietnam) they describe. They give off strong beat poetry vibes, combined with a more raw, down-to-earth quality, as Casey covers some of the people and places he experienced as a highway patrolman and base gate guard in the American military police in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Kunitz points out that Casey doesn’t take much of a political stand on the war here, but by focusing on people and situations not necessarily in the direct line of fire, the poems humanize both the Americans and Vietnamese they portray.

I read this book of poetry as part of the 2026 Sealey Challenge, so here’s some extra info and stats:

Number of pages: 93
Number of poems: 53
Minutes of reading time: 46
Number of poems that made me smile: n/a
Number of poems that made me cry: 1 (“Hoa Binh”)
Number of quotes saved: 16
Favorite quote:

Sergeant Rock was in the army
Since the day he was born
He was in the war of the babies

Favorite poem: “Hoa Binh”
Other favorites: “On What the Army Does With Heads,” “For the Old Man,” “For Interpreter Sergeant Tuats,” “Slickness,” “Back Door Man,” “Learning”
Sealey Challenge bingo criteria—Poem without punctuation: “Message in the Public Interest”

[Robert]

Good, but I found the poems in Checkpoints to be more direct and effective.

[Robert Beveridge]

Michael Casey, Obscenities (Yale, 1972)

Casey, the 1972 winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets award (judged and introduced by Stanley Kunitz) offers up what Kunitz believes is the first artistic comment on the Vietnam War. Solely on that merit, the book demands close scrutiny. Casey reads like a kind of odd cross between Mark Twain and T. S. Eliot, in that his spare lines encompass the many dialects across which he ran during his time in-country. Eventually, though, the mind and the ear both tire of the unending stream of dialect and wish for one of the very few poems here (I recall two) in which Casey reverts to non-dialect-spelling English and flashes the ability to put words together that so obviously impressed Kunitz:

Her back is arched
Like something's under it
That's why I thought
It was booby-trapped
But it's not
It just must have been
Over this rock here
And somebody moved it...

Casey, like most of the Yale Series, definitely had some raw talent, and it would have been interesting to see what became of him. Unfortunately, also like many of the Yale Series, it looks as if Casey may never have published another book. ** 1/2

[David]

LEARNING
I like learning useless things
Like Latin
I really enjoyed Latin
Caesar and the Gallic Wars
Enjoyed his fighting
The Helvetians and Germans
And Gauls
I enjoyed Vietnamese too
The language
Its five intonations
Its no conjugations
A good language to learn
Vietnam is divided in
Three parts too
It makes me wonder
Who will write their book


Even in ‘Nam guys were thinking about Ancient Rome.

[Joseph]

“Tough shitsky you alll
I could give a sweet fuck”