Huckleberry Minh: A Walk Through Dreamland
Glen Alyn

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ISBN: 1-877603-61-9

“Glen Alyn's fine poems range in mood from celebration of the sensory joys of living to outrage at man's atrocities of war and apathy, Fresh, striking phrasings and images gleam in his language, whether the poem's main setting be East Texas, Vietnam, the Mississippi River, or the poet's observant, creative mind. At times hilarious and witty, at times mordantly ironic, the voice of Glen Alyn in this book is clear, direct, engaging, and, above all, honest.”

—Thomas Whitbread, poet, author of Four Infinitives and Whomp & Moonshiver

“In this myth of innocence lost and reclaimed, Glen Alyn reaches deeply into his own consciousness and the consciousness of the race. Written with grace and honesty.”

—Albert Huffstickler, Poet Laureate of Hyde Park, Austin, Texas

“The American Male Dream has every Odysseus a manful, misunderstood boy; sic
Ishmael, Huckleberry Finn, Holden Caulfield and Bill Clinton. If Homer was a blind singer from Chios in the Aegean, Glen Alyn is a kind singer from Killeen, Texas who came home from the ravages of Viet Nam with no bands togreet him. In this extraordinarily compelling and inventive little masterpiece of poetical epic and healing, Huck is still on the lam. Alyn keeps the tale taut and dramatic even as he walks it through the dreamland that was his hamburgered and Baptized America, his retreat and exploration of the Indian bends in the ghost river of Twain and Huck's ole Mississip, and the nightmare that was Viet Nam. Nam he approached as Queequeg-turned Mance Lipscomb, fashioning his coffin to serve as a guitar case until what was left of him would need it. In the Central Highlands below Banana Mountain, tents exploded like olive drab birthday balloons. Like Ernie Pyle, Alyn keeps his battle reports as brief and explosive as hand grenades. Somehow, he survived, only to face something almost worse: Coming home. In the writing of this, Huckleberry Minh has healed himself, and perhaps in time a whole generation of Americans. And for good reason. So much of his odyssey as Huckleberry Glen is as compact and quenching to the thirst for good sensibility as is a canteen of sweet water on a stroll with Christ and Buddha.”

—Billy Porterfield, novelist & journalist, Wimberley, Texas, author of Diddy Waw
Diddy & lots more

From Glen Alyn's "Buddha"

He sat
Crosslegged
on top of his desk
Crumpled papers
under his ass
Requisitions and casualty reports
scattered about
with forms and files
action analyses
brigade business
Top sergeants staring
transfixed

No Major
they’d ever seen
behaved like this
Embarrassing
Even worse
the Major didn’t care
who was embarrassed

In place of dog tags
Buddha medal
hung on dogtag chain
slipped out of uniform
Hung in mid-air
near heart
As Major Arnold
leaned slightly forward
in Korean meditation

He had his orders
He cared for his men
He cared for his boys...

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1997-2003
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November 11, 2003