Christian Nguyen Langworthy, The Geography of War, Oklahoma City: Cooper House, 1995.
I have never before seen the subject Christian Nguyen
Langworthy writes of expressed in a book of poems: the experience of being a
child born of a Vietnamese prostitute mother and an unknown American G. I.
father. The Geography of War treats in a
wide range of styles and forms an equally wide range of emotions and sensations
regarding what it was like for a generation of bi-ethnic children to grow up in
war-torn Vietnam and eventually to be allowed to come live in the United
States.
It
is wonderful and dreadful to see through the eyes of such children and their
mothers the underside of a cruel and, no doubt, representative war. This
chapbook of poems is delicate and painful, urgent and beautiful. Such poems as
“In This Country Revised,” “Cicada Song,” “Even As I Lie Pretending Sleep,”
“Mango,” and “The Mosquito” are cautionary and unforgettable. “The Burned
Walls” is the best terzanelle I have ever read on any subject. I consider
myself very lucky to have had the
privilege of bringing these poems to the attention of a larger audience.
THE BURNED WALLS
We sleep in the shadow of burned walls
That comfort and shade us where we nap.
Mother will be here before night falls,
And on our shoulders she will tap
A lullaby under cherry trees
That comfort and shade us where we nap.
The charred walls resist the breeze
Above our heads, and breezes bring
A lullaby under cherry trees.
In the night, mother remains to sing—
To ease the buzzing of the bugs
Above our heads and breezes bring
The smell of scorched wood and rugs
Hidden from us who hope the sun will rise
To ease the buzzing of the bugs
Which crawl on our bodies, our thighs.
We sleep in the shadow of burned walls
Hidden from us who hope the sun will rise.
Mother will be here before night falls.
Christian Nguyen
Langworthy
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