Concho River Review - Fall 2010
FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC
By H. Palmer Hall
(Turning Point Press, 2009. 76 pages. $18. ISBN 9 78-1-934999-74­5)A review by Janet McCann

H. Palmer Hall's Foreign and Domestic is a poetry collection that gives a new and distinctive perspective on theVietnam War. Hall, the editor of Pecan Grove Press as well as a prolific writer of poems and essays, is a Vietnam vet whose poetry often intertwines the horror and beauty of the war so that each often compliments the other. His tour of duty was from 1967-68, but the poems are fresh as if Hall's wartime experience ended last month. There is a surreal quality to some of the scenes - the sense of nature seen as a contrast to human nature, nat­ural beauty as background for human destructiveness.

This book is divided into two parts, "Foreign" and "Domestic," but the two sections mirror and often haunt each other. Dreams and memories blend and comment on each other. Sharply incised scenes are followed by interpretations, history, and poetry. These poems bring the Vietnam era to life as no other work I have read does. The language, the natural scenes, and the people become present. This poetry gives Vietnam a voice, a being.

The first poem in "Foreign" sets the tone. It begins with a haiku for the Thanh Phong massacre, then develops a four-part dream/ memory:

clouds lying
over hills, mists in the mountains, deep green
in the highlands, red blossoms, the shrill cries ofjets,
staccato hammering shredding leaves, the weightof guns,

the heavy thought of children, the nattering
sounds of women washing clothes. It is all one:
one sound, one cry over the rice paddies.

The last segment begins:

I thought I saw a Buddha cry and not cry, a bo tree
blooming, two rivers parted around his thighs,
flowed east and west, diverged
from that moment on, ran slowly down the winds.
ilfaut que ... Hom nay phai... We need to...
history is an old becoming,
a path, not a fixed idea, a slow walk through flames
and old records of this and that...

The languages mingle, and the conclusion is a moment of understanding.

"Domestic" is also rooted in violence, and perhaps the most moving poem of the section is the long "Big Thicket Requiem," an elegy in six parts to James Byrd Jr., an African-American who was murdered in Jasper, Texas, on June 7, 1998. His death was one that solidified Texas' hate crimes law. The poem is a mix of horror and beauty that defies quotation. But the other poems are also pro­foundly evocative, including the suicide story "An Elegy for Jeff," which begins at a music club, then shifts the scene to a car that "veers / deliberately from the road," slamming into an embankment. Hall then brings the reader back to the club, pondering "whatever sends/ young men and women down/ into that nothing/ they can always and only see." The range of styles and forms in this collection show Hall's skill; there are sonnets and other traditional patterns as well as free verse.

Rhyme is rare but rhythm is constant; these poems make their own music, and they vary from sparse to long-legged, from tight to expansive.

This book is an elegy to those lost in Vietnam, the dead on both sides, and of course it is not limited to this war; other wars and vio­lent incidents are included: Iraq, the world wars, 9-11, the hate killing of James Byrd, and suicides. Indeed, the many deaths in this collection occur in all circumstances, but the sense of loss, of waste, is paramount.

Many questions about life and death, war and peace flow under the surface of the poems, seldom fully declaring themselves, reminding the reader that war intensifies everything and that violence is an innate tendency of humankind. The romantic and the harshly realistic mingle and merge in a collection that is sure to broaden H. Palmer Hall's reputation as a poet.