Overview

DRINKING WITH THE ENEMY: These are poems that sing of the horrors of war and of the seductions of war and of the ripples of war into the lives of those who survive them and those who don't, of those who love the survivors, and those who can't. And they are poems that speak to the need to speak and to the need to listen, and of the abiding echoes of love found lingering in the grief of loss.

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Reviews

Heart-breakingly beautiful, Wayne Karlin's poetry shows us how to gain strength from pain and sorrow, how to live with dignity and compassion in a world of cruelty and violence, and how to survive when our loved ones are taken away from us. In these poems, language becomes a bridge between the living and the dead, where not just tears are shed, but love is exchanged. Drinking with the Enemy offers eternal songs for peace and love, written by a poet who stared death in the eye from the days of his youth, to know that to live is not to be afraid of speaking the truth. If you read one poetry collection this year, please read this one. -Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, internationally best-selling author of The Mountains Sing and Dust Child. Wayne Karlin helps me keep my Buddhist vow-to face reality. Do not turn away. Face war. Face the torture that we wrought even upon children. And should we come home, what/whom do we come home to? The Poet guides us to know our human capabilities. -Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Woman Warrior, China Men, The Fifth Book of Peace, and other works. Drinking with the Enemy is a solid addition to the work of novelist and short story writer Wayne Karlin. He easily adapts the language of poetry to his highly visual, rhythmic narrative style, and the poems collected here have the weight of all his writing, entrancing readers while holding their attention. Beloved by many Vietnamese writers for his activism and unbreakable friendship, over the postwar years Karlin has bridged a gap with Vietnam that few artists or veterans have had the ability or opportunity to attempt. No doubt the Vietnamese, from a culture that treasures poetry, will translate and view this work as a vital part of the Wayne Karlin bibliography. U.S. readers of his work will discover it is that and more. -George Evans, author of The New World, Sudden Dreams, Wrecking, and Espejo de la tierra, a bilingual collection translated by Daisy Zamora, and other collections of poetry and essays. Wayne Karlin for more than 40 years has used literature to document and come-to-terms with the Viet Nam War. Drinking with the Enemy is his most powerful writing yet-Karlin's feelings distill into a language that burrows into your heart; and his experiences, so vivid, are impossible to forget. ""We tasted red mud and fire and bitter cordite and brass."" Reality changed by exquisite perception is what we call Art. Art stays, and Karlin's words are essential to keep war's sorrow and cruelties from floating away in time. -Grace Cavalieri, Maryland's tenth Poet Laureate, author of The Long Game: Works Selected and New and other works. These poems and prose vignettes-so dense that they too are poetry-range from the Vietnam War to the Greek classics to the loss of beloved pets and even more beloved partners. They reveal the beauty of grief, celebrate the necessity of sorrow, and ultimately reaffirm the value and goodness of life. I come away from this little collection feeling hopeful. -W. D. Ehrhart, author of Thank You for Your Service: Collected Poems and other works.

Author Information

Wayne Karlin is an author, editor, and teacher. His books include three works of non-fiction: Wandering Souls: Journeys With the Dead and the Living in Viet Nam (Nation Books, 2009) which was also published in translation in Vietnam as Những linh hồn phiêu dạt ((Nha Xuat Ban Thong Tan, 2013); War Movies (Curbstone, 2005), Rumors and Stones (Curbstone, 1996), a collection of short fiction, Memorial Days: Viet Nam Stories, 1973-2022, (Texas Tech University Press, 2023); nine novels: The Genizah Publerati, 2024), A Wolf by the Ears (University of Massachusetts Press, 2020), Marble Mountain (Curbstone, 2007), The Wished-for Country (Curbstone, 2002), Prisoners (Curbstone, 1998), US (Henry Holt, 1993), The Extras (Henry Holt, 1989); Lost Armies (Henry Holt, 1988), and Crossover (Harcourt Brace, 1984), (also published in England (Methuen, 1985), and in translation in Sweden, Finland, Italy and Holland), and a poetry chapbook: Drinking with the Enemy, 2026. After service in the United States Marine Corps in the Vietnam War, Karlin co-edited the first collection of Vietnam veterans' fiction from the war, Free Fire Zone: Short Stories by Vietnam Veterans, in 1973, and in 1995 was the co-editor, with Lê Minh Khuê and Truong Vu of the first collection of fiction by Vietnamese and American authors who had been on different sides in the war: The Other Side of Heaven: Postwar Fiction by Vietnamese and American Writers. He became the pro bono American editor of the Curbstone Press Voices from Vietnam series and introduced, adapted and edited novels and short story collections by contemporary Vietnamese authors, as well as a second anthology. Karlin was ALSO one of the script writers, a technical consultant, and acted in the feature film Song of the Stork, a Vietnamese-Singaporean co-production (Megamedia, PTE, BHD Productions, 2002) which has won the Best Feature Film Award at the Milano Film Festival in 2002 and has been shown in other festivals in Belgium, Canada, the U.S. and Thailand. In 2006 and 2009 Karlin was a consulting producer and writer for Shared Weight, a series of hour-long radio programs involving interviews with American and Vietnamese writers, film makers and artists in the U.S. and in Vietnam, and journeys of reconciliation, produced by the Center for Emerging Media for National Public Radio. It was broadcast on over 40 NPR stations and is still in circulation. Karlin retired as Professor Emeritus from the College of Southern Maryland in 2017, after thirty-one years of service.

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