Between the day we received Olga’s story and today, the gardening company in Odessa mentioned in the text was destroyed during the Russian air strike on May 1, 2024. Thousands of plants and trees were burned, warehouses and offices destroyed. Luckily there were no casualties among the employees. The owners of the company released a video of the aftermath of the attack.
Seeking the most comprehensive and holistic healing of war wounds possible, I have been leading annual reconciliation journeys to Viet Nam for veterans and other war survivors every year since the twenty-fifth anniversary of the end of the war in 2000. Encounters between survivors of all sides squeeze long-ago memories and feelings out of American and Vietnamese alike. Through poetry I record the voices and stories of women and men who lived through extraordinarily close encounters during war and again on meeting today. These encounters show the depths and complexities of our emotional lives during times of warfare and its aftermath when we can transform fear and hatred into understanding, compassion and love.
We present in this section a collection of poetical contributions that explore the topic of the close encounter in war.
Cesare Aloisi: The Second World War (I Was There…) / Seconna guera mondiale (io c’ero…) (March 3, 2025)
Tejaswinee Roychowdhury: Three poems (November 3, 2023)
Ankit Raj Ojha: Three poems (September 5, 2023)
Edward Tick: Potatoes (November 22, 2022)
Svitlana Povalyaeva: Poems for Roman (November 9, 2022)
Margaret Stetz: Dirt (January 12, 2022)
Peter Yeomans: Two poems (June 4, 2021)
Scott Casey: You died today (May 4, 2021)
Kate Dahlstedt: Sentry (April 21, 2021)
Humberto Ak’abal: Selected poems from In the Courtyard of the Moon (Tia Chucha Press, 2021) (March 26, 2021)
Edward Tick: The Emotions after War in Viet Nam. Poetry from my Reconciliation and Healing Journeys (March 17, 2021)
Yoav Ben Yosef: Smol Yameen (March 9, 2021)
Trần Đình Song: Dòng suối quê hương (The Streams of Our Native Land) (February 22, 2021)
Charles “Sandy” Scull and Brent “Mac” MacKinnon: Selected poetry and prose by Sandy Scull and Brent MacKinnon from the volume Agent Orange Roundup. Living with a Foot in Two Worlds (Bookstand Publishing, 2020) (December 27, 2020)
Edward Tick: Selected poetry and prose by Edward Tick (December 27, 2020)
Close Encounters in War 