A dirty and murderous joke: the Korean war poetry of Keith Wilson

Rt'l'isra de Estudios Norteamerica11c>s , 11. º 9 ( 2003 ). PI'· 39 . 64 A DIRTY ANO MURDEROUS JOKE: THE KOREAN WAR POETRY OF KEITH WILSON WrLLTAM D. EHRHART, PH .D. University of Wa les «I was a regular Navy officer». writes Kcith Wilson . «I carne from warrior stock, right out of thc Highlands of Scotland, and the Welsh Marches».' Graduating from Annapolis as a 22-year-old ensign in June 1950. he was assigned to the ai rcraft carr i er USS Valley For ge . By the time he joined the s hip at Buckncr Bay , Okinawa, a month later. the Unit ed States was at war and the Va/ley Forge was hea d ed for Kore a.2 Over the next three years. Wilson wou ld serve two tours in Korean waters aboard thc carricr and a third -anti much more dan geroustour aboa rd the LST 1123 operating in suppo rt of coastal and guerrilla operations in Korea. «l expectcd nothing from war», Wilson says. «I was a professional. 1 didn' L, however. expect to be li ed to and betrayed. I was very proud of the UN flag at our mast head when we went in to laun ch attacks. I thought, and still do think, that the on ly way I can see for thc planct to s ur vive is to have an e ff ective world-wide government. Wh en 1 fo un d ou t tha t Korea was ali a very di1ty and murderous joke, I was silenced for many ycars». Sixteen yea rs. to be exact. but he would not be silenced fon~vcr. Wilson. born in Clovis, New Mexico, on December 26 , 1 927, and raised in sma ll towns throughout thc statc, had a li bis life been preparing for a career in the navy. His great-granduncle was Rear Admira! Allen V. Reed , onc of the first graduales of the United Statcs Naval Acade rn y at Annapolis. Wilson's grandmother, Admira) Rccd's niece. never missed an oppor lunity to remind Wilson that his for ebca rs had l. Lcltcr to WDE frnm Wilson datcd f-cbruury 21, 1997. Th e following quntc is from the >mnc letter. 2. Co11te111pomr y A111/wrs A111obiogrn¡1hr Senes, Volumc 5. p. 342. A ll nthcr biographical information comes r rnm this 'ame suurce (CA) unl ess otherwise notcd. 40 Wil/iam D. Ehrhart fought in every American wa r sin ce the co l on ial Frcnch a nd lndian War. Taking her cuc from h er own mothcr. says Wilson. « my mother always intended me to go to Annapo l is » .' both women clearly h oping Wi lson. too. might one day achi eve an exalte<l station comparable to thal of his greatgrand u nd e. But Wilson. though dee ply fond of the sea and a scaman's life. had been unhappy at Annapolis. finishing only bccause he did not have the hcart to break his mothcr's heart. and was too deeply db illusioned by his expericnccs in rhe Korean War to con ti nue a career as a naval officer. He rcsigncd his regul ar comm issi on in 1954 and rcturned to Ncw Mcxico. Eventually hired as an as~istant profcssor in tech nical writing at New Mexico Stale University in Las Cruces. by rhe time he rctired in 1986 he was a full profcssor of Eng l ish and the un iversity's poet-in-residence.~ Though Wi lson had grown up expec ting a military carecr. he had also har horcd a lifelong dcsirc to be a writcr. «I was rcading evcrything I could understand in our [family] library when I was ahour four», he writes, «IB ly c ight I kncw I loved thc ac t of writing» (CA 333 ). He pu blish ed his first colicl.:tion of poems , Sketches for a New Mexico Hil/ '/inl'll. in 1967. and the books and chapboob havc hecn coming st eadily cvcr since .< In addirion. his poems have appcan:d in dozens of journals ranging from Poerry. Hudson Re1•iell', Prairie Sclwo11e1: E1 ·ergree11 Re1·iew, Triq11ar1erly. and 3. Unpuhlishe<l inh:n i ew w il h T o<l<l G. Dick,on oflhc ú1s Cruel'.\ S1111-Nc11·s. Novemher 10. 1992. provi<le<l to WDE by Wilson. 4. C4. Also. author questionnaire prov i<lcd lo WDE by Wilson in 1997 . .'\. H ere is a complete list uf Wilson\ publbhed booh and d1apbooks lhrough 2000, as accurately as 1 am ahle to ren<ler il (since many of lhcse publications are long: out of print 1 have had to rdy on Wilson's own CV for much of 1he infonn ation contained on this list. hui have <liscovae<l a numbcr uf crrors in years of puhlication on thc CV: I havc correc.:te<l here what I know to be erroneous informal ion. but there may be other errors of which l :un not awareJ: Skerchesji!r a New Mexico Hill 1i!lm . Orono. ME: Wine Press. 1967: 11 Seq11e11ces. Portland. OR: Wine Press, 1967: The Old Car. La Gran<le. OR: Grande Ronde Press. 1967: Grm•es Regí.\ll:v & Other Poem.\, New York. NY : Grove Press. 1969: Home. wad. San Francisco. CA: Kayak Press. 1969: Rock.I. Oshkosh. WJ: Rnadrunner Prcss. 1971: The S lwd ow of Our Bones. Purtlantl. OR: Tra sk Hous e Bonks. 1971: Tht• O/d Man & Others: Some Faces for Ameríca. Las Cruces. NM: New Mexico State U11iversi1y Press. 1971: P.m /111 .\ for \41rio11s \41ices. Las Cruces. NM: To lar Crcck Pres>. 1971: Míd1m1ch. Fremont. MI: Sumac Press. 1972: '/1u1111ox : Songs of a Jag11ar Pr íest, Den nis. MA · Sall Wnrks Pn :ss. 1977: The Slwman Veer. Dennis. MA: Sa lt Wor k> Pn:s s, 1977: Th.- Streen 1ifSan Miguel. Tucso n, AZ: Magu~ y Prcss. 1977: Whíf t• Da ncing Feet S/wtter the Earth. Log;111. UT: Utah State Univer-:ity Prcss. 1978: /Jes nt Cenote, Fnrt Kent, ME: Great Raven Press. 1978: Retah/o.\, Cerrillos, NM: San Mar c os Press. 1981: Sro11e Roses: Pol'/ns /mm 1iwHylw111ia, Logan. UT: Utah Sta te Univcrsity Press. 1983: Lm·e.wmgs & Mandtilas. Cerri ll os. NM: San Marcos Pr ess. 1984: Meeting ar Ja/. Hnbbs. NM: Hawk Press. 1985 (w{fheodore Enslin): Lío11 's G(lfe: Selecred l' oems. El Paso. TX: Cinw Puntos Press. 1988: A D1rt y a11d M1mlem11.1 J 11ke : Tll<' K11rea11 a ~ir f'twt n· 1 ~f' Keit li Wil.wm 41 Collexe Englisli to D ry Crik Revi e 11 ; Monk '. 1· Pmul, and Floating Bt •ar. and in several do/.en anthologies from Ron Schrieber"s 31 New American P oer.1· (Hill & Wang, 1969) to Czeslaw Milosz 's A Book of Luminou.1 · Thi11g.1· (Harcourt Brace, 1997 ).f' Over the years, Wilson has receivcd a D. H. Lawrenc e Fellowship, a P.E.N.- American Cent cr Writing Grant. a National Endowmcnt for the Arts Crea tivc Writing Fellowship. the New Mexico Governor 's Award fo r Excellencc in the Arts. a Western States Arts Foundation Book Award, a P. E.N.- We st Book Award, and thc Border Book Festival\ El Premio Fronterizo. But for ali his accomplishmcnts. Wilson rc mains , as Len Fulton of Dustbooks says. «thc be st lc ast-known poet in the U.S»7 And perh aps the mo st neglected aspcet of Wibon ·s writing has been his encounter with the Korean War. «No thing in my life changed me as mu c has that war tlid», says Wilson. Not even the Naval Academy. not my mother·s dcath nor my fath er's ... lf you ha ve n ot see n one. y ou cannot im agine how much of a ni ght mar e wa r is bccause th erc is not hi ng normal. .. The wal ki ng through the ruins of what was once a city [Jnchon] anti you sce children fight ing o vera piece of ga rbage. to eat. anti t heir bcllics swollen.x This was not th e noble stuff of th e young naval officer 's chi ldh ood dreams and fantasics. «lt secmed we we re forevcr coming into a beach ora por t immediatcly after action -bodies were strewn about or tloating on the now calm sea, but there was no living soul about». w ri tes Wilson. «My cx per iences there haunted my mind for a long time - to a ccrtain extent. thcy sti ll do » (CA 343 ). But if he was hauntetl by his exp er icnccs, for many years a ft erwards he could not write about them. Ali of this change tl . however. with the rising spcctre of yet another American war in Asia. Writ es Wilson: I was one of thc iir st comhat veteran officers to prot es t Vi et Nam heca us c I knew it to be unlawful, and co uld on ly lead to another disg ra ce ful stalemate. 1 led protcst march es and rc ad at them. [ But] I had no poems about war at ali - I had buried it inside. [He fina ll y startcd w ri ting about the Korean War) in t he The \V i11d.1· of Pe 11tecos r. Las Cruces. NM: l:llu e M c'a Press. 1991: Gra1·e s Regi.'1ry. L iv in g, lon. MT: Clarl; City Pr es,. 1992; The \Va \' oft '1 e Dm·e. Las Cruces. NM: Wh olc Notes Pr css. 1994; fü 1rr ior Song & Other Poems. H obb,, NM: Wr iters on thc Plains. 1996; E111d es. Boisc. ID: Limberl o' t Pre s,, 1996. Bosque Re t!1111 t! o. Tesuque. NM: Pennywhistle Press. 200 0. 6. lnformation nn puhlicat ion' and awards co mes from the Currirn /11111 Vitae provided tn WDE by Wilson in f'cbruary 1997. an updated CV provided in Ap ril 1999, a nd the Dickson intervi ew. 7. ten er to WDE i'rom Fulton dated April 1 1. 1999. 8. Di cksun intc rv1ew . 42 Wi//iam D. Ehrluirr winter of 1966 in anger that our government was again fighting an undecla red war in a situation that l, from my expe ri cnces in K orea, knew we could never win ... lt took the press ure of rage and fe ar for the young men [of the Viet nam gen era ti on] that mad e me write it and it poured out , page after pa ge .9 The initial outpouri ng. a 22-pocm sequence about the Korean War titled «Graves Registry», Wilson says he wrote in a single night and in th e arder th ey appear in pr inr.10 He latcr added two more sh ort sections to the seq u ence, totalling seven additio nal p oems. It was subseq u en tly pub lish ed. alon g w ith 26 ot h er poems, as Graves Re~istry and Otlzer Poems. Wilson thought that was the end of it, but. he says. it was no t: I was deeply engaged in reading from Grm • es Registry to war protest groups and traveling across the country back and forth. I was really scared for our country . And I bcgan writing the poems [that would becom e Midwat clz] ... Mid1rntclz was wh en 1 rea ll y got ma d about what was goi ng on in this coun tr y. To me I was attacking the fascism that 1 saw blossoming in my own Jand. He did not ini tially associate these n ew po ems with thc «Graves Re gistry» sequencc: I had written these things to handle the Vietnam War. because it was a very horrible wa r. an American ni ght mare. Thc poems were no t ab out Ko re a ... Midwmch seemingly st ood alo ne. J didn ·1 think it referrcd back. But J later saw it was dcfinitely a pan of [thc «Graves R egistry» scquence]. When the boo k was pub l ished by Sumac Press in 1972. it carrie d the full title uf Mid1ratch: GraFes Registry. Part.I" IV ami V. In thc midl 970s. Wilson added t wo more parts to the sequence , « The Continen t s, Thc Holy Seas» and «A Masque for thc Warriors». These lat er poems rangc from Romania to Argentina to B abylo n. and include observa ti ons on human nature («A b oy draws a sword and we kn ow/what we are: ki llcrs , boro to comba t», GR l 94 ). marital infid elity (<d had thought she loved m e./What she J oved was thc thought/uf de at h», GR 195 ), !o ve of family («befa re uur eyes// - -childrcn. Small beauties that catch /ou r breath». GR 199), and ov er and over again the sea, the romance of thc sea. Wilson 's unresolvcd lon ging for the sea: 9. Letrcr to WDE from Wilson <latcd Fcbruary 21. 1997. 10 . Dick~on i nt<: r view. The next tw o quotcs also .:omc from Dickson. A Dirty ami M 11r dero 11 s Joke: 11u• Korean fü ir Poe tr y lif Keit lr Wi/son l never surrendered th e sea very gracefully. Waves sound in my ear. The engine of my last ship still vibrates my bedl .] (GR 180)11 43 Aft er a long and frustrating se ar ch for a publisher, he finally g ot the entire sequence published by Clark City Pr ess in 1992 under the title Graves Regis tr y. Thesc poems, taken ali together, cr ca te a thought-provoking mixture of the literary and the political that moves tluidly across ti me and geography, and the Kore an War poems of Graves Registry make Wilson one of the most imp ortant voices of that experie nc e as well as a significant contributor to American war literaturc in general. Wi lson opens both the or iginal sequence titled «Grav es Registry» and th e 1992 book Graves Re gi st ry with thc following notation: Graves Registr y: A Joint Service Operation that comes in aft er battles, & wars, to count the dead. identify bones, draw up a total of what has becn Jost . . . Aus dw zkl em We i11 w zd Ta usend Rosen r innt die Stunde ra11sc he11 d in den Tra wn der Na cl a. 1' In so doing. Wilson establishes both the logic and origin of the poems' overall ti ti e and the ironic juxtaposition of the rea li ty of war. as symbolized by the Graves Registry l l . The poems quoted in this pa ra graph ar e. respectiv el y. «And the Faces ofWa r Ran », «The Young O rfi cer's Rctu rn», «A Poem for Fa miJy,,. and «I N ev er S ur ren de red the Sea». Ali quotations fro rn the p oe ms are tak en fr u rn the l 992 Clark City edirion of Grave s Registry unless otherwise noted. In the case uf pucrns originally publishcd in th e Grove edi tion o f Gra v es Registry all(/ Ot her P oems and the Su mac edition of Mid1rntch, the t cxt s nf the poem s ar e un ch anged in the Cla rk City editiun. The only variations in 1he latter ed it i on <lea l primarily with titles and designations of p oe ms. most notably th e fact that W íl son added t it lc s lo thc 22 p oem s in the original «Graves Registry» sequ ence, most of which had bcen d es ignated on ly by Roman nu rn erals. and ass ign ed Roman nu mera ls to every pocm in the Clark C it y edition, thou gh in the earli er two boo ks onl y the tir st 22 poem s of «Graves R eg istry» were so nurnbered. Am ong u ther ch an g es in the Cla rk Ci ty ed i ti on, Wils on also takes the tir"t pnem from Grave s R egis11:i· all(/ Other Poem s. «Echoes, Se afall s for Heloise.» and incorporates it into the «Grnves R cg istry» sequence as R om an numeral l. tho ugh in the earli er book it had been se parated fr om the Korcan War p oe ms by 24 unrelated «other poem s.» lm med iately a rt er 1he initial 22-p oem sequ ence (now ma de 23 by inclusion of the love po em fo r his wife). he adds fo ur pnems that were not in the Grove cdition. and includes «The Lion's Ga te» as par t of the sequenc e. though it was d early des i gna ted as its own p oe m with its own tille separare frnm the «Graves Registry» sequence in the G ro ve e diti on . In the Clark City editiun or the M idwa tch poc ms . Wilson ma kes a number of c ha nges to titl es. dele t es one poern called «Thc D rowne d B oy» t ha t h ad a ppea red in the Sumac editio n. and r eve r ses the or der of se vera! p oe ms. 12. «Üu t uf dark wine and a thousand roses runs the !m ur rushing in to the dream of night» 1 Norton edition. 44 ). Ali Germa n epig ra phs are to be fo u nd in The L ay of tire Love & Dea t/ 1 of Coro11et Ch ristoplrer Rilke by Rai ner Maria Rilke. 44 William /J. EhrharJ Joint Servicc Operation. with thc styliud , ideal i1.ed vision of war prescnted by Rilke , a vision that has scnt countless young mcn -including Wilson himsclf. it would secmoff to a mortally me.le awakcning. Wilson's identification with Rilke is both powcrful and per so nal. «I learned German (rcading with a dictionary) so that J could rcad Rilke in the origina l. I was obsessed with him for a long time before J wrote any of thc Graves Regisrry poems », he writes. « When T discovered that he. as well as I. had graduated from a major military acadcmy and was thcre because of his ancestors and their waJTior history -his family had been named .. vo n Rilkc" but they had lost th eir lands and were forced to drop the ··von". A history strangely like my own ». Moreove r. he points out that Christophcr Rilke wa~ given thc rank of «Coronet». a rank equivalen! to Wilson 's own initial co mmissioned rank of «Cnsign». both of which mean roughly «he who carries t he flag » . 1 ~ Be that as it may. Wilson·s rudc awakening. as rcnde red in thc sequence, arr i ves only by increm en tal steps. Thc Cla rk Ci ty edi ti nn bcgins with, in esscnce, a !ove p ocm f or Wilson 's wife. «Echocs, Scafalls for H elni~e» (GR 3. a pocm tha t al so appears in thc Grove ed ition but notas part of the «Graves Rcgistry» scquence). 1~ Then comes «Sorne Thing Is Coming» (GR 4 ). a quietly ominous poem dcscribin g the ret ri eval of an American torpec.lo bombcr -wh ich Wilson dt:scrib es as «a shark . a killer whale»- from the bottom of Tokyo Bay , its thr ee crewmen sti ll strappcd in to their sea ts: each ha s his gogglcs set. heac.ls leaning slightly forward against the restraining straps. Lenses wink dully beforc «in the bright air fksh slidcs off long dead/skulls. helmcts shrink & collapse». Thc pocm, both grisly and arresting. is a reminder that World War Two was still recent hist ory when the Korcan War began, and that Jap an wa~ the s taging ground. the forward Iogistical suppo rt base. for Americans fi ghting in Kor ea. Of par t icular significance is tha t Wilson says «sorne thing» is co ming. No t «something», but «sorne thing .» Namcless. Undcfined (and pe rha ps undcfinahle). But di stinct. A singular entity. Darkly thrcatening. Wreaking of dcath. 1 J. E-mail from Wilson to WDE datcd May 6. 1 999 . With regar<l to The La_,. of Jhe ú m· a nd Death cif Comnet Christopller Ri lh '. note that «Coronel» may a l ~o be rend cred ¡ L~ «cornet» and "Ch ri stop her» is some tim es rendered as «Ch rbtoph ». 14 . Heloise is Wilson 's third wi ti:. whl>lll he marrie <l in 1958 a n<l to whom he is still married. Poems for Hcloise :ippe;ir fr equently throughout Wilson"s books (f or examp l c. « lslm1ú Song». GR 41: .. To My Wifc.» While Da11ci11x Fee1 Slwtter the Eartli 1 -l: «To Hcloi se ». R ,wb/os 3: and «Santa Ana Ho use». Lion's Cat e 18). Wil so n ·s ti rst wif c. who se nt him a «Dcar Jolu 1» letter úuring his third tour in Knr ean wate r s. app ears in onl y a fcw poems («The Young Offi cer·, R eturn». GR 19 5. and « Conti:~sio na l of H is Lov e». GR 211 ). an <l then only in the co ntext of her betrayal a nd inliúclit y. Wil so n 's sccond wifr. to whom he was ma rried only brietly. sccms not to appear in his writmg at ali. <See also CA) A JJ1rtv a11d Afurderous Joke: Thc Korea11 War Poet1T ()(Keith \V i /son 45 But the threat recedes for the mo ment as young sailors in «China Night» (GR 6) «mme of us speaking Japanesc ... fumbled with girl s» whose fath crs had been soldiers in Manchuria, China, and the Philippines. «gho st voi ce s. spinning on». Still another reminder ofWorld War Two appears in «R&R from Korea, 1950» (GR 7) in the form of "ª rusted .45» pisto! the Shore Patrol officer (W ilson'!) finds while supervising a becr-soaked «beach party from the carrier/ lying off Kwajalein», the weapon wi th clip in, hammer back, safety off. in its way. dangerous as a handgrenade, there since World War II. In t he midst of directing his men. who are trying to co ntrol t he in creasingly drunken sailors. the offic er also tries «to get free/long cnough to give that weapon/a decent buríal». And then Wilson shifts cver so smoothly from the World War Two .45 to the «Colt .32 Auto/snug under ithe] armpit» of «The Captain» (GR 9), US Ar my. «about 40,/small, lean ... thc kind eyes/of somebody's unclc». Hi s men: tal! for Koreans, ali carr ied M-1 's (becausc there, big men havc big rifles, it is the custom) & what happened to bis eyes the changes when he spoke of th cir raids of villages flaming, wome n & children machinegunned as th cy ran scrcaming from their huts[.] That «thin g» is no longer coming. It has arrived. And in its wakc, instead of the decent burial of the prev i ous poem , we are left with the unburied bodi es n ot even of combatants. but of women and children in their white clothes sprawled hcre & there, big & sma ll , blood seeping ínto whitc[ .] Wilson 's pocms do not follow any chronological progression, certai nl y no t th e progression of his own chronology th ro ugh Korean wat cr s, moving as thcy do from 46 William D. Ehrharr carrier to LST to carrier again and back to LST, jumping fr om 1950 to 1952 and b ack to 1950 and again to 1952. But there is very much an emotional pr ogression to th e poems. and Wilson modulat cs those emo tio ns with great skill. After the blunt sho ck of something very much li ke ma ss murder in «The Ca ptain», Wils on offers « ... g an z in W affe1m•> (GR 10 ), a curiously gentle, even sweet, poem in which a deck officer , firmly but without humiliating, bolsters th e courage of a yo ung sailor on the verge of breaking as their ship comes under fire from enemy shore batteries: The boy looked about 10 standing there, the wind from the open bridge tugging his h ai r. Come back here, he said. The boy <l id. Stand here beside me, he ordered. He did, close. They we nt through th e action that way. & neith er was afraid. When we think of the Korean War -if we think of it at a ll - wc mostly think of the Pusan Perimeter and the Cho sin Rese rv o ir. Po rk Ch op Hill and Heartbreak Rid ge, the bi g battles between lar ge units of regular troops. the fury of conventional land wa rfare. Wilson 's poems a re thereforc especia ll y illumi nating b eca use th ey foc us aga in and again on two aspects of the war th at are frequently overlooked: the naval war (Kor ea is a península with a vast coastline. and navy forces constantly patrolled the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan, providing ali sorts of support to the land battl es from carrier-based airstrikes to naval gunfire)16 and the guerrilla war (throughout the war. extensive guerrilla operations were carried out by thc forces of both sides. and as ha s airead y bcen noted, Wilson 's LST 11 23 often acted in support of American and South Korean guerrilla actions ).17 « Th c Si nger» a nd « Th e Circle», for instance, refl ec t the naval war while « The Captain» and «Gueri ll a Camp» are based on the guerrilla war.1~ In «Guerilla Camp» (G R 12), Wilson describes a visit to a guerilla camp run by «an Army ca ptain». He d oes not specify if this is the same man as in « The Captain», b ut in both poems Wil so n descr ibes junk s built w it h powerful concealed engines and meant for swift hit-and-run coas ta l raid s. After breakfast abo ard the LST, the captain leads a tour of the ca mp, showing the navy officers «the kitchen, & th e/tent barracks, th e specially built junk s» and the hospital. where they see fo ur 15. « .. . dad who ll y in armor " (Rilke. Norton edition. 48) . 1 6. See. for instance. the introduction to Retrieving 8 011e.1 xxvi ii . and Jo hn Deck"s story in that samc volume. «Sailors al The ir Mourning: A Memo r y» 102-114. 17. CA 343. and Wilson le tt er dated February 2 1, 1997. 18. Wilson spells «gueriJla ,, with onc r. l am accus tom ed to spelling it wi th two. Eith er spelling is acceptable. You will find it spelled hoth ways here, depending on who is spelling it. A Dirty cmd Murdemus Joke: The Korean H'<'ir Poefly of Keith Wi/.wm sheetcovered bodies from the raid the night before, didn 't ask whose men they were, sp oke kindly to the wo und ed & gave them cigarettes[.] 47 Through ou t all this, Wilson intersperses stanzas describing a si lent Korcan who «followed, ta gged /a l ong like somebody's/dog», until at last he strode up, stuck his shattered hand in my face, anger & hatred flaming in his eyes & shouted & shouted & shouted[.] *** He was one of our s, a re ti red fighter. about my age, my height. They told me he wanted to know how a man could farm with a hand lik e that. Wilson insists that when he writes, he is barcly even co nscious of what he is writing. « When I wr i te poetry, I always hear a voice in my h ead speaking the lines j us t before I write them», he says. «My bcst poems seem to emerge from that speaking voice. as if I am taking dictation>>.1 9 Moreover, he adds, «l never get involved with extensive revisions on the page .... If the poem is not nearly perfect when it comes, I put it in what I ca ll my gunny sack (actually one of several boxes) and leave it, often for good». Many anoth er poet should wish to have such a voice speaking i,1 his or her head, for Wilson ·s touch is deft, his sub tl ety often breathtaking. Consid~r his choice of the word «retired» to describe the cr ippled Korean. «Retired» is a word th at conjures the end of a long working life, 25 years with the company, a pension and a gold watch, and time to take the grandc hi ldrcn to the park on a Wednesday morning. It i" not a wo rd to be used with a man in his mid-20 's, a Korean mirror image of Wilson's own young self suddenly left with no future. It is the perfect word to convey the irony, the sorrow, the waste of war. Just so. the waste of war is ca pt ur ed also in « The Singer» (G R 14), a boy of «17. About 6' !". Heavyset,/with plowman 's hands & walk» who «sang midwatches away. te lling /of cou ntry lands , of growing crops/green corn , tall in the fields/of 19. This an<l the following quote come from CA 353. 54 Willimn D. Ehrhart ammo», is act ua lly «a bomb,/a torpedo -Long Slow Target». Says one of the boatswain mates. «[a]gook with a .45/could sink us». 28 As their ship steams « through the tightest passagc,/communist shore to starboard, an island/to port», enemy coastal artillery opens fire on the island, «then U.S. jet engines swoosh & napalm douses /t he shore batteries». the battle raging around and over the LST as they «sail on, walls of red/to either side the dying/fight back», And if , with thc noisc of the battle and of thei r own ship's engincs, «somehow the screams, the dying got lost», the fragility of the ir own predicament is not lost on Wilson and his shipmates: «We, steaming on,/carrying our own dcaths/deep in our bellies». But howcver exciting war may be, however fascinating, Wilson is too thoughtful, too clearsighted to be able to avoid where that excitement and fascination have led us ali. Nothing in the history of modern warfare -not the rifled bao-el or barbed wire or machineguns or dynamite, not the trcnch warfare of the Western Front or the tank battles of North Africa and the Russian steppeshas so brought home the fact that our cultural notions of glory and virtue and nobility of warriorship, of individual courage and skill at arms, have long since outlived their usefulness (if, indeed. they evcr had any usefulness) than the detonation of the atomic bomb. And here again, Wilson's pacing is marvelous. After giving us two poems that convey a much more traditional sensibility about war , his next poem is «Hiroshima» (GR 34). The vcry title of the poem, Jet alone its substance, says , «[t]his is where 't he greater dream of battle' finally leads; these are the screams and the dying that has gotten lost» in yet another war only a short flight. a short sail. from Hiroshima. Back in Japan with his «Japanese girl», whose «burned cheek» carries the scar s of Hiroshima, Wilson struggles to come to terms with «wha t/it is to be american,/japanese in a century/of terror» while he traces those scars «With shak ing fingers». One can almost feel Wilson shaking in «Commcntary» (GR 35), shaking with angcr, a deep down in the bones kind of rage. The most powerful poem in the sequence, «Commentary» is a vivid denunciation of the brutality and senselessness of the war in Korea. the ignorance and apathy of Americans back home, the twisted logic of what General and President Dwight Eisenhower would eventually call the militaryindustrial complex, and the hypocrisy of ali who claim to want peace while allowi ng the war to go on: prelcnd we wcrcn't there .... It was a joke among us that a North Knrcan with a pistol could have hlown us oul of the water» (34 3 J. Anti in the pr efacc to Fragments of a Forj!,orten füir. he writes. «I ,Jipped belwccn wa ll s of tlame - to po11 -when coastal battcrícs (theirs) hit our ammo dump on an i <; Jan<l : to starbnard. jet fighters <lroppe<l napalm on thcir battcries ». 28. Not e the use of the word «grnlk» to refer to a Korcan. T he te rm , widely us ed by Amer ican -;o l<li ers in Vi etnam (see. for instance, Larry Rottmann's «S.O.P.» in \Vínni 11g H ea rr.1· and Minds 53). quite dearly pre-dates thc Vietnam War. A Dirt y 1111d M1ml e m11s Jo/..e: The Korea11 \Vttr Poen y o/ Keith Wilsm1 After the raid. the bodies are lined on the beach. Wc can sec them across the way, th e li ving standing beside th em in thcir white robes, the wind hitting in gusts across the scparating bay that these men died that our guerillas shot them down in a darkness is perhaps not so impo rt ant. God kills, they say justifying man's ways to those patterns they see surround them deaths. li sis of victims in a language the uncle back home couldn't read if he saw it, whosc cnemies are always faceless, numbcrs in a papcr blowing in the Stateside wind. How many bodics would fill a room living room with TV. soft chairs & the hi ss of opcned beer? We have killcd more. The children 's bodies alone would suffice. Thc women, their admittedly brown faces frozen in thc agony of steel buried in th ei r stomachs, thcy too would be enough but aren't, are linally n ot pilcd high enough the cost of war musl be paid. bullets madc for firing. fired. O, do not dream of peacc while such bodies line thc beaches & dead men float 55 56 the seas, waving. their hands bcckoning rot. white bones scttle on ye ll ow bo tt om mud. William D. Ehrhc1rt Note the allusions to ca rli er incidents descr ibeu in « The Cap tain» and « The Cir cl e» . Note. too. that Wilson says, in the second stanza, not «in darkness». but « in a darkncss». not literally in the night. but in a darkness of the soul , a darkncss uf the human heart. And finall y. note that Wil son r eserves his greatcs t wrath not for th e killing it se lf. which is «pcrhaps not so important» in the gr and scheme of what n ce ds to be aduressed and redressed, but for th osc in whose name th e killing is done, those who sit safcly at home imagining th¡1t they wi sh for pcace an d cl oing nothing to achieve it. Like an Olu Te stament prophet -o ra man t ro ubl ed by his own nig htmares - Wilson rebukcs thcm: «O.Ido not drcam of peace » - using not «Ü h», but «Ü », a mouth op en in a scream-while «hodies/line t he beaches & ueau men floa t/the seas». That single «Ü» mi ght have b ccn melodramatic. but is no t.2'> Coming. as it docs. at thc cnd of the penultimate poem in the sequence. alkr ali that has gone hcfore it. it 'ounds like what it is: a cry from thc bc st that is human in thc poet to the best that is hu man in whomcver mi ght pick up th ese poems and r cad t he m. Surely « Co mmentary» must rank with such poems as Owe n·s « Du l ce et D eco rum Est ». Jarrell's «The Death of the Ball Turret Gun ner», and Balaban 's «After Our War» as une uf thc finest antiw ar poems ever wr itten. The poem's only real weakness b that someone unfamiliar with Wi lson 's «Thc Circlc» may not understand why «dcad men tloat the seas» (the «hodies l in [ing] the beaches» are exp lain ed interna ll y and do n't n:quire knowleuge of «The Captain» ). but mo st reaclcrs are likcly to be able to makc their own scnse ofit. even ifthey miss the specilic allusion. In thc end, though, Wilson is under no illusion that anythi ng much has changed or is go ing to changc. In the last poem of the or iginal seque nce, there is finally a «Truce» (GR 37) in Korea. but though the «ships come home, cruisers/the ir stacks still ... uniforms in mothballs./gold braid tarnishing»: Factories. burning with orange smoke, cut steel plates with bl uc ares. welders patch up the weapons ofwar dream. 29. In his pnem «Letter Home», William Childress also uses «Ü» im,tead of «Ü h », a nd with equal efti:ctivcnes~ (Ehrhart. «Burni ng the Years» 88) A Dirty and M11nl em1rs Joke: T/1e Kore mz \ Vcir P oet1~· of Kl'irh \Vifson Wilson ends th e poem. anti th e scqucnce. with ano ther quote from Rilk c: ... wu/ die sechze/m ru11de11 Sabe!, die auf ilm ::.uspri11ge11. Strahl um Strahl. sind ein Fest. Eine /achende Wass e rk1111 .1· r . .io 57 The p as~agc is taken from thc climactic. s ui cida ll y h ero i c, unabashedly romantic death scene of Cornct Ch risl opher Rilke, a chivalric death, a manly dcath, a d ea th young b oys at play aspire to. a dcath that makes the h ea rts of young women be at fastcr. In short. a death that bears no likencss to the gutshot sin ge r with a «boy's face/twisted & grey», or a drowned man with upturned buttocks g li stening «greyish whitc », or «Wo men & children/ ma chinegunned as th ey ran/screaming from the ir huts». Noth in g much has bcen Iearned. W il so n see rns to be saying. Our dreams, as a culture, as a p co plc. as a species. ar e still of war. One would like thcse poL: ms to end on a more po si ti ve note, pcrhaps sorne morse! of hope, however small. but the world is what it i s, and onc can hardly fault Wilson for that. Seven o th er poerns appcarcd in the origi nal published version of «Graves Registry» in Grm ·e s R eg i .1·try and Other Po ems. but only one of th em dcals explici tl y with the Korcan War, «The Ex-Officer. Navy».J1 Not wr itten as pan of the original se quen ce. it is clearly a Iooking back sor t of poem, a po em that deals n ot with thc immcdiacy of war. b ut with its afterma th , its lingering effects. even years and ye ar s after the foct. h might be callc d a «PTSD poe m» (t hough post-traumatic stress d1sordcr was not identificd as such until the l 970s) in which "ª man, who no matler how long the days/faces still the combat. the l ong ni ght 's terror» of gunfire, «a restless dream» that gives him no p cace until, «On white bare feet, with flaring eyes he grccts/the morning» an ti the faces of thc dcad «fade/gr ey smokc against a city 's sun». The 44 poems in the Midwatch section of Cm1•e.1· Re gistry (originally published in 1972. three years after Graves R e~is tr y a1Ul Other Poems) includc a number of pocms based on thc sea and Wilson's ambivalent feelin gs abo ut a life at sea and his decision to lca ve it. inter spe rscd with overtly po li tic al poems -including pocms about thc Vietnam War. Kc nt St ate , and thc dcs t ruc tion of the environment - and com mentaries on war and human naturc. In «T he Poem Politic 3» (GR 82), he writes: «What are po litics anyway/but the formalizcd Justs and greeds of men?». In «The Poem Politic 8» (GR 104), he wondcrs: 30. " ... and the 16 curw<l sabr e,. that ! ca p u po n him. l h t ~ h on tla sh. ar e a fo::as t. A laughing fountain» <R ilkc. Norton edition, 66). 3 1. In Gral'I!.\' Rl'gi.\'Try llllli Otlzer Po ems. it is the n o::x t pn em afrer «Truce ». but in Gmre s Registr y. Wi lson in ~cr t s another low poem l' or Hcloise between «Truce» and « The Ex-Otlice r. Na vy». 58 Can a child be taught 1w1 to kili. when he crus hes the baby chicken so easily under his h ee l, lingers his wooden sword and ho wls with apechild an ge r? Our !oves wcar tattered gowns. our hatrcds shining stccl and battletlags! .] William D. Ehrharr «Thc Poem Politic 10: A Note to Future Historian s» (GR 109) hegins and concludes When writing of us. state as your first premisc THEY VALUED WAR MORE THAN ANYT HING You will ncvcr understand us o th erwise THEY VALUED WAR M ORE THAN AN YTHING If you b ui ld us monuments let them ali say that, as warning, as a poíson lahel on a bottle. that you may not ever repeat our follies. feel our griefs. Some of the p oems make oblique rcferences to Wilso n's Kor ean War cx perien ces, such as «Bailad of a Sailor» (GR 68). in which Wílson wr ites. Here. far from the sea. this h ouse is st ea dy. lt <loe s n ot rock a nd that noise is thundcr, n ot g:untire. «SeaChanty: Níght Song» (GR 94) is more explici t. referring to "ª pilot /dy ing as his je t s ank in the Yc ll ow Sea». But only three of th c poe ms in Mid wmch <l eal with the Korean War directl y. «C orsair» (GR 1 28) is a kind of eulogy for a dead pílot i den tificd only as «D. S.» and « Don », 32 a ma n wh o «re fused//to machincgun civilia ns/on the Korean hillside/to homb a courtyard/full of re fu gecs». 32. The ti tic of th e po em. «Corsair». is al so the nam t: of a typc of li ghter-homh cr uscd hy th e Navy am i Marine Corps in Wor ld W; irTwo and the Korean Wa r. In a May 30. 1999. e-mail to WD E. Wilsnn says that D. S. was «tme of thc l' cw fr iends 1 had among 1he upper classmen at USNA» and was A f)irry mu/ Mtmll.'mt" Joke: The Korem1 fütr Poerry of Keirh Wilso11 59 In «T he Pocm Politic 4» (GR 86). howeve r. we encounter «a killcrazy kid pilot» who not only doesn 't refuse to drop bombs «o n a cou11yard/full of refugees», but aftcrwards «spokc exci tedly/of bodies, arms, legs that rose several/hundred feet in the air». In a po em driven by the «horror thatfills us, atrocities/u11der another man 's lumd», Wilson also quotes «Ma jor J.E .K .. U.S.A.», who vividly details the execution of an old man in Korea. «A villa ge dder. he never knew why, J don 't think». says the major. adding . «l don't know why we did it either». But if other menare doing the actual dirty wo rk, Wilson in sis ts that we. too. are responsible for what is done and for w hat America -«a land we are filling with h atreds»- has become. «T hough l. personally, did not t ouch/ the button » that released t he bomb that landed on the courtyard foil of refugees, he writes, it was nevertheless «my own handiwork ». Wilson 's scnsc of irony is at its sharpcst in «Mem ory of a Victory» (GR 122). in which he and his ship -part of an invasion t1eetare l ying «off the Korean Coas!» awaiting word to commence the pre-invasion bombardment. In the stillness. Wilson can see on shore «a picture world with low hills /m uch l ike New Mex i co» filled with « homely sme ll s of rice paddies. cooking fires». Through his binoculars. he can even see peach tre cs in blossom. Then thc crackling radio commanded «F ire!» and distant world 1 could have loved went up in shattering bursts. in grcyblack explosions, the strange tr ees that sudden ly grew on the hillside. lt is nota victory in which Wilson can ta kc any pride. Shore batteries try to return fire, but are outgunncd and soo n silenced. He ends the poem wíth a line reminiscent of thc Roman Lcgions who madc a desert and ca llcd it peacc: «After awhile we sent boats into the silence ».-1 ·1 lt is against that silcnce that Wilson raises his voice. Hi s poems are not about the big battalions and the pitc hed battl es , but rather about a l esser known though cq ually vic iou s war. They throb with s hattered vi llages. shattered illusions. and sha tter ed idcals. They are p eop l ed by Americans. yes. but also by Kor eans and Japanese, refugces and cripple s. and by WUITiors, yes, but also and more so by the dcfenseless a nd the innocent who always beco me the wr ecka ge of wa r. In more than a dozen books and chapbooks publish ed bctween Midwatch and Clark City's Crares Registry twenty years later. Wilson includes no additional poerns about thc Korean War. and a lmo st nothin g th at can readily be rccognized as a refercnce or re spo nse to h is wart ime expcriences. Even in the final two sections of air ead y st acion cd aboard thc <:arrier Va/ley fo1 ; ~e when Wilson re port cd for duty upon graduation from rhc Naval Acade m y. 33. Caius Corneliw, Tacitus. in Agricofo, Section 30. quo t es Calga<:us atl tl rcssing the Britons at the Battle of the Grnm pians. and ref err ing to the Rumans. as saying: «Wht:rc thcy make a desert. they call il pcacc» (Bartkll 1.:10) . 60 William D. Ehrhar1 Gra1·es R eg is try , the word «Korean appears only once (in thc ti tlc of a poem ca ll ed «Vietnarn/Korca/Jenkins Ear», p. 144. that is not othcrwise about the Korean War as such). And whi le severa! of the poems almost certai nl y are based u po n Wilson himself d ur ing thc war ( «The Young Officer 's Return», p. 195, and «C onfessional of His Love». p. 211 ). one must know Wilson ·s biography pretty we ll to reali ze it; moreover, these poems have more to do with Wi lson's tirst marriage than with the Korean Wa r per se . '4 Thus. it would seem that Wilson had said what he had to say about th e K orean War. But when Paul Edwar ds's anthology Tlie He rmit Ki11gdo111: Poe ms <~f'the Korean War was published in 1995. it contained three prcviously unpubl ished Wilson po e ms, ali of them writtcn after the publication of Gra ves Registry. ~5 and ali of them. li kc «Thc Ex-Officer, Navy», looking back poems dealing wit h various aspects of t he lingering consequcnces of the war: «ghosts », as Wi lson wri tcs in «Old Times» ( THK 93). «that sti ll wa lk/thc ni ght wh is p er ing/the word .. Kore a"». An encountcr between Wilson and a junk shop owner who has for sale a ri bbon bar. including the Korcan Service Med a! and other decorati ons Wilson himself e arned, triggers mcmori cs of «co asta/ g1111.1· as theY !rack our shiplthrough the wi11te r 11ight» and « bod ie. 1 lnr ol/e11 , floating in the Ye //mr Sea». Thc ju nk dealer, too, is a veteran «from that forgotten war» -indccd. the impli ca tion is that the ribbon bar is hisand as Wi lson pays for the ribbons, the man 's eyes hood, turn slightly away towards whatever he sees in the exploding shells ri cochcting ro unds that suddenly fill t hc room. sum)llnd us both. «The Seventh Wave» (THK 95) is evcn more intcrcsting. No t only does it zero in on Korea as a fo rgotten war, or as Wi lson puls it in the p ocm. «t hi s unmentionab le w ar », but it also makes severa! comparisons bctween the Korcan and Vietnam Wa rs, mentions Dcsert Storm un flatteringly, and castigates Americans in general fo r being uncaring, shortsighted. and obtuse. « In the afte rm ath of war». the po em begins. «it all swc pt around hi m./The silence .... Ycars we nt by ami he camc to hate Veterans'/Day when "Korca" was never mcntioned, or/brieíly in passin g»Y 1 In th e midst of a society that has «no long-tenn memory at all, seeing all/wars as Desert Storms. made for TV », thc Korean War ve teran and his comrades feel like «ghosts drifting». When a Vietnam vctcran says, 34. Concerning W il so n 's tirst marríage. s cc CA 342-34.i & 345. 35. In an e-mail to WD E dated May 30. 1999. Wilson sar , that thc three p oems wcre writrcn «in a bunch about a ycar bcfure Hermil was puhlishcd». which woul<l da te them to 1994. 3 6. According to the >ame Ma y 30 e-ma il ci tc <l above. Wilson says that the «he» in th í> pocm is not hí ms elf. but ra thcr an o l<l fríend from Las Cruc es . 1 stSgt. Robe rt L. Gain es. USMC. to whom th e poem <l iscussed jusi prcviously. «Old Time• »>. is <ledicated. A. Dirn· ami M1mlem11s Jo!.,·: Tlw Koremr War Poe 1ry <1{ Ke ith Wilsmr 61 «Hell. at least they didn't spit on you», he does not tell the younger man that «silcnce/can be a way of spitting», tooY On thosc rarc occasions when the ve tcran <loes mention Korea. «[p]coplc smile uncomfortably won der why/he is dragging up that old subject again./He wonders. too, draws more into himself». The poem is rife wi th bitterness. its message one of alienation and detachment from the society for whom the veteran thought he and his comradcs had been fighting. Af t er a last swipe at Ronald Reagan for closing «the Vet's Hospitals». the veteran hurls a final judgement atan ungrateful nation: «Fuck 'em» . «War Stories» is intcresting for a very different reason. Throughout his writing life. Wilson has written all but exclusively in free verse or open forms. Much of his writing - including his unconventional use of upper and Jower case, punctuation. and white space-shows the influence of Charles Olson. whose essay «Projective Verse», Wilson writes. «was the beginning of rny personal prosody»..18 But «War Stories» is not free verse. one of the very few poems of Wilson 's -and his only Korean War poemthat is not. To hegin with. it is rhymed. having a scheme of: aab, bcc. ccd, dee. ffg. ghhh. Ami while not metrical as such -feet per line range from three to sixit is divided into regular stanzas of thn:e lines each, with a closing stanza of four li nes. Finally. as can also he seen above. each stanza contains a pair of rhymed lines plus a line that rhymes with onc in the preceding or following stanza (except for the last stanz a, which follows the samc pattern hut with a triplet instead of a coup l ec to cover the extra line). The poem is skillfully enjambed, with only four fu]] endstops in l 9 li nes. and suggests that Wilson has the technical skill and mastery to write in closed forms, but has simply chosen not to. In the case of « War Stories », howeve r, «it just scemed thc right thing to do», he says. «I arn a compulsive writerI'rn not really thinking when I wr i te. 1 arn responding to what 1 am receiving and what I am fceling at the time»}'J 37. The spat-upon Vietnam veteran has becomc nn e of thc most widely accepted images of rhat war. hu t in fact such incidents happened rurcly. if they happened at ali. See Jcrry Lembckc\ Th,, Sj!itting lmage : M\'/h. Memory and J/¡e Legan· ofViemam. Elsewhere in thc poem. Wilson makes anoth er comparison between the Korean War and thc Vietnam War. having !he poem's persona ask, «Did you know more peuple died in Korea/than in Nam" That it !asted longcr').,_ In fact. according to Paul Edwards of the Center for the Study of the Korcan War, total American deaths in Korea were 34,600, while according to Anthony O. Edmonds in The War in Viemam. the comparable figure for Vietnam is 58.183. As for the wars· respective durations. the Kor ea n War began Junc 25. 1950, and the truce was signed July 27. 1953; the Vietnam War is harder to date. but using !h e mnst conservative measure. American ground cornhat troops first entered Vietnam in March 1965 whilc the Jast such units were withtlrawn by March 1973. In the version of «T he Seventh Wa ve» that appears in the as-yet unpublished manuscript Frag111en1s of a f(ugotten fü1r. after th e second of thc two questions above, Wilson adds a third qu estion. «That it hadn 't cndctl. cver'»>. This is true: therc has never been a peace treaty. nnly the original 1953 truce. which oftlcially makes the Korean War of Jonger dura tion tha n the Vietnam War. but on ly as a technicality. 38. E-ma il from Wilson to WDE dated May 1 1. 1999. 39. E-mail from W il son to WDE dated June l. 1999. 62 William D. Ehrhar/ Turning to th c tcxt of the poem. one notices that the title is incorporated into the hody of the poem. beginning: War stories. told around a mountain fi rc by old men[.] But as thcy talk. «[t]hey never see the darken ed l ea d/gr ey w oo ds silently fill with dead//who li sten. nod their heads». As the poem progresses. it becomes harder and harder for either the men around the campfire or th~ reader to distinguish the living from the dead, until shadows take each other's hands. in pain the files of wardead. bloodied to th e bo ne walk their path s. through nettles and stone, sheav es and sheaves of war dead. each of us alone. The imagery is p an icula rly effcctive here, th e harsh path of neltles and stone. the dead as bundles of ripe wheat -hundreds. thousands of stal ks to a sh ea fharvested by the Grim Reaper. And again Wils on uses irony effectively. fo r there are no war stories in «War Stories», but only the dead. and the loneliness of mem ory. and the old men. Nothing in th e poem makes it exclusively a Korean War poem as such, and in truth it app li es to the living and the dead of any war. Wilson himse lf remains among the living for no w. and writing about a li ving writer is a hazardous undertaking because living writcrs have a tendency to keep on writing. and Wilson is clearly still not done wi th thc Korean War. having published ye t anoth er Korean War poem, «Stone Seas». in the Summ er 20 00 issue of Rattle. In the meantimc. however, should he publish nothing more than what he alrcady has. he must be countcd as thc single most accomplished and important poet to emerge from the Korean War .~ 0 anda major -a nd shamefu ll y overl ookcdfi gure in American war litera tu re in general. lt would be inconce iv able, were it not true. that Wilson should be either mi ssed or dismissed by every anthologist, critic, and scholar of war literature since the or iginal publication of the «Graves Registry» se qu ence in 1969 u nt il Paul Edwards published Tite Hermit Kingdom in 19 95. One can only hope that more r ecent attention brought to bear on Wilson 's Kore an War poet ry ~ 1 is a harbinger of thin gs to come and the start of his finding a permanent place in the canon of war poetry. 40 . Ot her i mp o rtant American pu ets or th c Kur ean War in clude Willi am Chi td ress and Rola n<l o Hinojosa. Willi am Wantling, Reg Saner , and Jam es M ag ner. Jr . are al so not cworthy. Sec Ehrhart's «Burning t he Y ea rs » for a l engthy Jiscussion uf Chil<lress. Sec Ehr har t's «S old ie r-Pocls uf thc Vi etn am Wa r» for discussion or and poelry by thc others. 41. Scc espccia ll y Ehrha rt' s « Sohlier -P oe ts uf th e Vietnam War » and «F orgotten War . Forgotten Words»: Ehrharl and Jason\ R etr i evi 11 J? Bones: Stories wrd Poems of tire Kore tm War; A Diny w1d M1mla o11s Joke: The Korew1 War Poern· of Keilh Wilso11 63 WORKSCITED Buluban, Joh n. Blue Mountain. Greensboro. NC: Unicorn Press. 1982. BatTy, Jan, Busil Paquet, und Larry Rottmann. eds. Winning Hearts wul Mi11ds: füir Poems by Vietnam Veterans. Brooklyn, NY: 1 '' Casualty Prcss, 1972. Bar tl ett, John. Familiar Quotations. Boston. MA: Littlc Brown & Co .. 1968. Dickson, Todd G. Unpublished intcrview with Keith Wilson conducted November IO•h. 1992. Edrnonds, Anthony O. The fü1r in Viefllam. Westport, CT: Greenwood Prcss. 1998. Edwards, Paul M., ed. The Hermit Kingdom: Poems of the Korea11 1#11: Dubuque. JA: Kendall/Hunt. 1995. Ehrhurt, W. D. «Burning thc Years: The Korean War Poetry of Wi ll iam Ch il dress». Revista de Es//ldios Norteamericanos 8 (2001 ): 77-103. - . «Forgottcn War, Forgotten Words». Poetry fü1les 34.4 (April 1999): 39-44. - . und Philip K. Juson, eds. Retriel'ing Bones: Stories all(f Po ems of rhe Korean Wm: New Brunswick. NJ: Rutgers University Press. 1999. -. «Soldier-Poets of the Koreun War». War. Li1erature mu/ the Arts 9.2 (Fall/Winter 1997): 1-47. Juson, Philip K., and Mark A. Graves, eds. E11cydopedia 4 America11 \#1r Literat11re. Westport. CT: Greenwood Press. 2001 . Lt:mbcke. Jerry. Spitti11g lmage: Myth, Memory a/Ul tlze Lega cy of Viemam. New York: New York University Press, 1998. Olson. Charles. «Project ive Verse». Ed. Donald D. Allcn. Tl1 e New American Poetry. New York: Grove Press, 1960. 386-397. Owen. Wilfred. Cof/ected Poems. Norfolk. CT: Ncw Direction s, 1964. Rilkc. Rainer Mm"ia. The Lar of the ÚJ1 •e ami Death (~f' Comet Clzristoph Rilke. Trans. Stephen Mitchell. Saint Puul, MN: Gruywolf Press, 1985. - . The Lt1y of the Love all(f Deatlz (d" Comet Christoplzer Rilke. Truns. M. D. Herter Norton. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. 1963. Stokesbury, Leon. ed. Articles of Wcll". Fayetteville, AR: University of Ari,ansa,· Press, 1990. Summers, Harry G .. Jr. Kor ea n War A/111a11ac. Ncw York: Facts on File. 1990. Tucker. Spenser C.. ed. E11cyclo pedia of the K orea11 War. Santa Barbara. CA: ABCCLIO. 2000. Wilson. Keith. Fragmems of a Forgotten War: ;\ Memorial of Korea & Japan 19501953. Two versions of an unpublished manuscript provided to WDE by Wilson. February and May 1999. (Expandcd and revised from Sf(me Crosses, Sf(me Seas.) -. Gra\'es Registry. Livingston, MT: Clark City Press, 1992. -. Graves Re gist1:\' all(/ Other Poems. New York: Grove Press, 1969. Tucker's E11l'\'clop edill <f tl1l• K or et111 War: ami J a~on and Graves. E11c .fflopedit1 of A111<'1"i<rn1 War Li1~rnrure.