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Simonides in Vietnam: And Other Epigrams

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R.L. Barth knows his classics, and in this wonderful chapbook he writes about the Viet Nam war as only one other veteran has: in the form and sensibility of Greek epigrams. They are by turn ironic, tragic, baleful, and meditative. These fine, nuanced poems go well past the particularities of Viet Nam, especially as they have become cliches in much veteran writing, to reach the universal themes. These poems are marked by a profound humanism, an identification with the common soldier, a hard earned cynicism about people in power, and a subtle wit. I have never tired of these poems.