Last Lambs: New & Selected Poems of Vietnam [Paperback]

Bill Bauer (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

An Act Of Mercy
Agent Ash
Benediction
The Brotherhood Of Man
The Chieu Hoi
The Company Clerk
The Eye Of The Ghost
Fragment Of A Letter
The Girl Named 'too Tall'
Golden Revolver
The Goldsmith's Daughter
The Icehouse
In Country
Joy
The Last Days Of The Eisenhower Administration
Last Poem
Maidens
Mail Call
The Medic
Mercenary
Moonlight And A Breeze
Mountain Men
The Mythmaker
Old Men
A Place In History
Private Armistice
Rabbit Hunting
Saturday Night And Popcorn
Shrapnel
Side Glance
Silver Stars
Sweet Tinnitus
Taps
Tecond Tour
Through A Helicopter Door
A Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Day
Viper
War Dog
War God
War Stories
Warning
What The War Was About
Wildflowers
Worst In Memory
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Details

• Paperback: 72 pages
• Publisher: Bkmk Pr/Umkc (April 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 188615712X
• ISBN-13: 978-1886157125
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,574,857 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Last Lambs is a breath of fresh air., February 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Last Lambs: New & Selected Poems of Vietnam (Paperback)

Modern poetry has become more and more obscure and increasingly obtuse. Last Lambs is a refreshing movement away from the didacticism of most recent poetry and offers much insight into the personal experience of participating in the Vietnam War. The "ghosts" of that war will be with us in nightmares for most of history. To have these poems at hand might well remind us that there is no reason to repeat our mistakes. Bill Bauer captures that less than admirable experience and presents far reaching considerations. All those who read "Fragment of a Letter" might take to heart the promise "they'll write when they get home." This book is the keeping of that promise. Readers would be advised to also write after they read this break through poetry. It is historically accurate, personally exact, and well intentioned. "...the man who was robbed of his laughter by the killing searches for it everywhere" leaves us all searching the"barrel" of our historical "throat" and the title to those lines, "Joy", reminds us that complacency might well be the greatest thief to joy. In "Side Glance", Bauer states "I am the bastard boy/of the World Wars " as are the multitude of senior citizens and the two generations after them that occupy the United States. Bauer does not trivialize the price paid for those wars. He does not trivialize the price paid for Vietnam. In "Warning" he explains it to vandals- "Let this wall be./It belongs to them./They paid for it."- and the reader knows that this would be true of any of the war memorials. Bauer in that same poem advises the would be vandals, "Slide your fingers over their names/and tell me you can't hear/the echo of their voices/chanting peace, peace." The poems in this volume allow us to slide our fingers and our minds over the names and the unknown names of those who gave their lives in Vietnam. These poems also allow us to "slide our fingers" over the names of those we know who returned from Vietnam and tried to retreive their former lives. The ghosts of those lives haunt those verterans daily. These poems allow us to look at the ghosts and enable us to identify with them. They allow us to look at the "ghost" that guides us and, in the sense of clear, precise, excellent poetry, provide us with much to contemplate.