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from the issue of January 31, 2008
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American Life in Poetry
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a new name for "shell shock," a term once applied only to military veterans. Here the poet Marvin Bell describes a group of these emotionally damaged soldiers, gathered together for breakfast. I'd guess that just about everybody who reads this column has known one or two men like these.
Veterans of the Seventies
His army jacket bore the white
rectangle
of one who has torn off his name.
He sat mute
at the round table where the trip-wire
veterans
ate breakfast. They were foxhole
buddies
who went stateside without
leaving the war.
They had the look of men who
held their breath
and now their tongues. What is to say
beyond that said by the fathers
who bent lower
and lower as the war went on,
spines curving
toward the ground on which sons
sat sandbagged
with ammo belts enough to make
fine lace
of enemy flesh and blood.
Now these who survived,
who got back in cargo planes
emptied at the front,
lived hiddenly in the woods behind
fence wires
strung through tin cans.
Better an alarm
than the constant nightmare
of something moving
on its belly to make your skin crawl
with the sensory memory
of foxhole living.
Poem copyright (c) 2007 by Marvin Bell, and reprinted from "Mars Being Red," Copper Canyon Press, 2007, by permission of the author and publisher. The poem first appeared in "Gettysburg Review," Summer, 2007. Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry Foundation. This column is made possible by the Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org) and supported by the UNL Department of English. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
GO TO: ISSUE OF JANUARY 31
ARTS HEADLINES FOR JANUARY 31
Hillestad hosts corset history exhibition
American Life in Poetry
Feb. 1 performance features UNL pianist
MOVIE SHOOT
Neely's Feb. 2 recital cancelled
'Note by Note' traces art of piano build
Performers meld poetry, South American music
'Ring of Fire' opens Feb. 5
733072S37818X
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