Poetry About the Vietnam War

Poetry about the Vietnam War bears witness to a uniquely painful and divisive chapter in modern history. These verses capture the humid reality of the jungle, the moral weight of a conflict without clear boundaries, and the long, difficult return home for those who survived. They honor the memory of the fallen, the pain of the wounded, and the enduring search for healing in the wake of traumatic memory.

From the perspectives of soldiers in the bush to those protesting at home, from the people of Vietnam whose lives were irrevocably changed to the names etched in black granite, these poems navigate the complex intersection of duty, loss, and conscience. They refuse easy answers, instead focusing on the gritty details of survival and the haunting presence of a war that refuses to fade into the past.

Featured Poems

The Emerald Ghost

The sensory experience of the Cambodian border.

The green is not a color here, it's a weight, a wall, a wet embrace that never lets you go. We learned to breathe the humidity and listen to the silence that always held a secret.

The canopy hides the sun but lets the heat drip down like wax from a slow-burning candle. We are shadows moving through shadows, fighting a ghost that doesn't bleed in a land that doesn't know our names.

- Robert Sterling

Letters from the Monsoon

The psychological toll of distance and weather.

The rain has no beginning and it certainly has no end. It washes the ink from the page before I can tell you I'm safe, before I can ask if the harvest in the valley is gold or green.

My boots are heavy with mud, my heart is heavy with miles. We live in the rhythm of the water, waiting for the sky to break so we can remember what it's like to be dry, or to be home.

- Elena Vance

The Weight of the Pack

The physical and emotional burden of service.

It's not just the ammo and the rations, the dry socks and the plastic canteen. It's the names of the men who aren't walking behind me anymore, the ghost of a smile from a girl in a village we left in the smoke.

We carry the expectations of a country that doesn't understand the geography of our nightmares. Each step is a negotiation with gravity, each mile a debt we're paying to a future we can't quite see.

- David Chen

Classic Voices

Dulce et Decorum Est (Excerpt)

by Wilfred Owen (1917)

Though from WWI, Owen's visceral imagery and rejection of 'the old Lie' resonated deeply with Vietnam veterans and anti-war poets.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, But some one still was yelling out and stumbling And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime. -

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin.

Counting the Black Wall

by Anonymous Veteran (1982)

A reflection on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The names are not just letters, they are anchors in the stone. My fingers trace the carving of a friend I left alone in a field of tall, sharp grass where the helicopters moan.

Micro Verses

The jungle remembers what the history books try to forget.

- Bush Poet

A soldier's heart is the first casualty of an undeclared war.

- Medic Voice

Home is not a place, it's a state of mind most of us lost between the trees.

- RTO Ghost

The wall is a mirror where the living meet the dead in a silent glass.

- Remembrance Wisdom

Deeper Explorations

The Long Return

The difficulty of post-war integration.

Wall of Names

I saw my own reflection in the polished, black surface, standing between the names of the boys who stayed young while I grew old and tired.

The granite is cold, but the memory is a fire that never quite goes out, no matter how many winters I spend in the north.

- Sarah Mitchell

Poetry About