You are never completely on 'holiday' when you visit Vietnam. In the north and centre of the country evidence of the lingering effects of the Vietnam War (called by the Vietnamese 'The American war' to delineate it from the other colonialist instigated conflicts the country has endured since the mid-19th century) is never far away. These three poems were written whilst on 'holiday' there in 2007.
Go to: Mascara Literary Review (March, 2008) [an Australian/Asian based online publication] - three poems from the Vietnamese Sequence: 'Soft Breeze of a Temporal Implosion', 'If you Eat a Pomegranate' and 'Hospital Cave and the Superpower'. All three poems copyright Ian Irvine, 2007, all rights reserved.
Whilst at the site make sure you check out the work of the innovative Vietnamese poet Thanh Thao, as well as that of my partner and fellow writer Sue King-Smith.