Zelda's Inferno exercise: my father's Vietnam story

Tom Swiss [ 27 June 2010 - 8:26pm ]

Zelda's Inferno exercise: write about things you've learned about other people's actions, that affected you deeply.

my father doesn't talk much
about his time in Vietnam
(he always just says "overseas",
almost never names the place)

for him I think it was
mostly boredom
an AP, he mostly kept drunk airmen in line and
walked patrol around the perimeter of the base

but on his 60th birthday he told me a story I'd never heard before

on his way home, in transit but still in country
waiting for a connecting flight, he and a buddy having a few beers
stepping outside

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About Zelda's Inferno

Baltimore's longest-running weekly poetry workshop.

We write. We talk. Sundays at 7:00pm (or so, Standard Poet Time), now at The Fells Grind, 1720 Thames Street in Fells Point. Free!

What, you want details? A couple of people sit around. Usually, we do a writing exercise for about 20 minutes. We share what we wrote. We talk about it. We share and discuss other pieces people bring in. We maybe do another exercise. We drink coffee. We go off on wild tangents.

Contact Tom Swiss at tms@zeldas.org for more information.

Novices welcome. All you need is a notebook and your imagination. In a pinch you can do without the notebook. Write on coasters, napkins, the back of your hand, the surface of your brain, whatever.

"We didn't just read poetry, we let it drip from our tongues like honey. Spirits soared, women swooned, and gods were created, gentlemen. Not a bad way to spend an evening, eh?" -- Dead Poets Society