"I was first introduced to the idea of political poetry on October 18, 1970, about midnight, in an all-night Harvard Square corner bookstore,” Doug Rawlings writes. “A few months before that encounter I had returned from the war in Viet Nam. To say that I was confused and angry is an understatement. I was also somewhat lost. Then on that fateful night I found this wonderful collection of poems by Denise Levertov that captured her journey to North Viet Nam as a peace activist. This was the first serious “discussion” I had read from and about “my” war. And true to what Robert Bly considers effective political poetry, Levertov used the personal to open up the universal. I was captured, and unlike my response to military “service,” I did not want to escape. Instead, I sought out more of her work and other poets and, eventually, began to write my own poems."
Rawlings, who recently made his first visit to Vietnam since he was there as a soldier, has been haunted throughout his life by the war. The images from the war do not go away – the bodies, the carnage, the faces, the children, the smells, the deafening concussions, all are present. These images make their way into his poems. Rawlings, who was one of several cofounders of Veterans for Peace, which today claims thousands of members in 130 chapters worldwide, has spent his life trying to convey the horror of war and atone for the crimes we committed against the Vietnamese people. Joining be to discuss the war, its aftermath and his return to Vietnam after 53 years, is Doug Rawlings who is a retired professor of English from the University of Maine Farmington.
The Chris Hedges Report Podcast with Vietnam combat veteran Doug Rawlings, one of the founders of Veterans for Peace, on war, atonement, poetry and returning to Vietnam after 53 years.