On this Voices from the Heartland episode, MPR’s Marlana Benzie-Lourey talks with central Minnesota poet Jerry Hansen about his time serving during Vietnam War, and his poetry about that experience. Hansen also reads numerous poems.

Program includes various musical elements.

Transcript:

(00:00:00) I think so many people think that all of the young men who were in Vietnam were drafted and they were there against their will in a sense but for myself, it was a time in my life that I suppose in retrospect. I was very insecure and I was actually there because I wanted to be there and I wanted to be in the Infantry. I can recall being in a formation early on and the first sergeant. Asked if there was anyone who could type. And I had this fear that they would find out that I could type. And that I would not end up in the field. It's hard to explain but they were all sorts of decorations and metals and and I just recall having this fear that something would happen and that I would not end up. In the field and this poem Oh Lord is really an attempt to address that time. and the state of mind that I was in oh Lord. Victor Charles, mr. Two steps Delta Don Willie Peter Daisy cutter Mama's on Widowmaker wheeler-dealer Harlem hair Dragon Lady Bouncing Betty Papa Bear. What a production. What a cast O Lord Make It Last master-blaster. BJ bopper GI Joe jungle pimp. Hanoi Hannah Uncle whole PL Panther Jolly Roger Johnny Reb wrecking ball hyper sniper spider web. What a production what a cast O Lord Make It Last O Lord make it
(00:02:14) last. So when did you begin to start a question? The the glory of it or you know, the when did things start to change for you? Did it while you were
(00:02:32) there at all? No, it really didn't I even later on in the war in the late 60s and the early 70s When The War had become very unpopular it I still didn't realize these things and like I say it was actually I don't think I consciously recognized what Vietnam was all about for a full 20 years in one of the poems. I talked about a character and I mentioned that the only thing that bothered him about Vietnam was that it didn't bother him. It is actually a reference to myself and that was very true. Love of myself in the years after the
(00:03:21) war. Would you be willing to read that one for us? Yes. as you were
(00:03:32) Floyd is happily married now. Works in a bank sells Ginnie Mae's and IRAs sings in the choir always votes sometimes writes a letter to the editor. Says the only thing that bothers him about the Nam is that it doesn't bother
(00:03:51) him. Why don't we go and look at some of the poems from the the first part of the book that described some of your experiences while you were there that one in particular that that struck me was I think called These Hands it works. So well because I describe that moment of realization when you discover that the enemy it could have been your friend or could you know is also human Why don't you go ahead and read that and then maybe you can talk a little bit about the memory that triggered that or the writing of that poem. these
(00:04:30) hands these hands clutching the blood and Beetle stained Mauser were good hands. And while he laid forever silent now these thick and Tethered to Earth hands yet. Spoke suggesting. No insisting. We would have liked one another. This is a poem that came out of the incident with an enemy soldier so many so many of the enemy were
(00:05:04) Vietcong. And actually farmers.
(00:05:12) So many of them had wonderful
(00:05:14) hands.
(00:05:19) Good hands, that's what I'm trying to say in this in this poem. When I refer to being Tethered to
(00:05:27) Earth that the image of being tethered Earth struck me because probably of something that I knew about you from our conversation earlier, which is that, you know, you had grown up on a farm in central Minnesota before he had gone to Vietnam. And so that that experience of working with the land was part of your own background and something that you know, perhaps recognized in this other. another one that struck me was the the old man and his chickens are an old man and his chickens. Why don't you tell us the memory that this poem goes with before you eat
(00:06:01) it? This is a poem that came out of an incident where we went into a mountain yard Village and one of the first things we did we rounded up all the livestock and killed the livestock we stacked. These chickens in crates on top of each other and then we put lighter fluid on them and burn them. This was in a little mountain yard Village near the Cambodian border and this poem an old man and his chickens comes out of that
(00:06:34) incident.
(00:06:41) And old man and his chickens. We killed his chickens. Drank his rice wine. We did not eat his chickens just killed his chickens. We had brought our own chicken in little green cans.
(00:07:04) Did the memory for this poem comes suddenly or was this an image that you'd been carrying around and thought of periodic there was a just listed like a flash that oh, this is something that happened and I'd forgotten about this
(00:07:15) thinking back now. It seems like all of the poems were just below the surface but until until like I said five years ago, I just never felt a need to to address them was
(00:07:30) poetry. I've been asking other people why they write poetry. So I'm going to pose the same question to you. You know. Why? Why do you write poetry?
(00:07:41) I guess part of the reason that I write is I've always I've always been the kind of person who who asks why and I always am in search of what I call crucial connections. and I think for me writing poetry is I find that the world find the world is blaring into one of my years and I always think of poetry. as a little voice almost Whispering into my other ear that sort of exposes the world and it's ways I need poetry. And I need a daily it seems now. to offset this voice That are referred to as the world blaring. I've always liked. poems that that have more of a philosophical bent to them when I think of fiction and I think of a novel I think of a novel as something that should entertain and I think of an essay as something that should provoke and when I think of a poem I think of something that should win. Oh. I like poetry. Basically that helps me to separate the chaff from what is valid in life. Just called family tree. In quest of shade below the lowest limbs. We stayed perchance had we perched on a higher Branch. We might have seen we were brothers.
(00:09:33) Oh a Jerry Hanson reading from his book blessed are the peacemakers.