This is a collection of essays on the life and writing of W.D. Ehrhart, poet, essayist, memoirist and teacher. The twenty contributors—scholars, publishers, poets—are from the U.S., France, Britain, the Netherlands, Austria, India and Japan. Some are Vietnam or Iraq war veterans. The collection overall studies various aspects of Ehrhart’s writing, as well as his direct influence on the lives of people, both as a writer and as a teacher. The volume concludes with a selection of Ehrhart poems chosen by the contributors because they embody some quality discussed in the essays. The book includes a selected bibliography of Bill Ehrhart’s published writings.

Jean-Jacques Malo studied at the Université de Nantes, France and Birmingham University, England. He taught at the University of Wales in Cardiff, and the University of Washington in Seattle and has been teaching at the IUT de l’Université de Nantes since 2001. His research on Vietnam encompasses films as well as published translations of Vietnam War poetry into French.

Edited by Jean-Jacques Malo
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 296
Bibliographic Info: appendices, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2014
pISBN: 978-0-7864-7699-2
eISBN: 978-1-4766-1653-7
Imprint: McFarland

Table of Contents


Acknowledgments v

Preface 1

Part One. The Prose Writer of Memoirs and Essays 13

“Making the Children Behave”—W.D. Ehrhart

Darkness Carried: W.D. Ehrhart’s Memoirs (Donald Anderson) 14

“The Chameleon War”: Passing Time and the Remembrance of the Vietnam War (Subarno Chattarji) 22

W.D. Ehrhart, Essayist: Musings of a Librarian and Friend (David A. Willson) 31

Part Two. The Poet as an Artist 49

“The Farmer”—W.D. Ehrhart

Relieving the National Debt: W.D. Ehrhart and the Wages of Memory (Ammiel Alcalay) 50

“We are the ones you sent”: Moral Responsibility and War in the Poetry of W.D. Ehrhart (Adam Gilbert) 59

W.D. Ehrhart at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Diederik Oostdijk) 77

From Patriot to Poet to Peacenik (Nicole Gollner) 88

Poetry and the Art of Resistance: The Literature of W.D. Ehrhart, in Context (Dale Ritterbusch) 99

W.D. Ehrhart and Chimei Hamada: War Memories of a Poet and of a Print Artist (Yoko Shirai) 109

The Poetry of W.D. Ehrhart: A Bibliographic Essay (N. Bradley Christie) 120

The Art of Writing Poetry: An Interview with W.D. Ehrhart (Jean-Jacques Malo) 139

Part Three. The Influential Writer 155

“The Heart of the Poem”—W.D. Ehrhart

Ehrhart Effect (Jan Barry) 156

The Importance of Being Earnest: A Veteran’s Eye View of W.D. Ehrhart’s Vietnam War Poetry and Prose (Edward F. Palm) 167

Authentic Voices: Echoes of Bill Ehrhart and Me (Robert C. Doyle) 178

W.D. Ehrhart and Adastra Press: A Publisher’s Perspective (Gary Metras) 187

Part Four. The Educator Who Knows Things Worth Knowing 197

“The Teacher”—W.D. Ehrhart

Bill Ehrhart as Educator (Martin Novelli) 199

W.D. Ehrhart: ­Teacher-Poet (Charles L. Yates) 207

W.D. Ehrhart: Transformational Teacher (Joseph Cox) 219

“I have learned by now where such thoughts lead”: W.D. Ehrhart’s Poetry and Rethinking How We Study and Teach History (Matthew K. Irwin) 228

Making the Wreckage Beautiful (Clint Van Winkle) 241

Appendix A: Ehrhart’s Military History 247

Appendix B: Ehrhart Poems Selected by Contributors 249

An Ehrhart Bibliography 267

Selected Works About Ehrhart 269

About the Contributors 271

Index 275

“filled with academic reverence for Ehrhart’s work”—The VVA Veteran.