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 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent narrative poetry with a fantastic voice. Would recommend.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

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

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 · Rating 5 out of 5]

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