Demonstrations on the 4th anniversary of the U.S. invasion
of Iraq are worldwide. This was in Heroes Square in
Budapest. AP photo.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Monday, March 05, 2007
Resource: In Print
Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace
Edited by Maxine Hong Kingston
Koa Books
In her book The Fifth Book of Peace (which I reviewed for the San Francisco Chronicle, and was complimented by the author for understanding it), Maxine Hong Kingston described her work with a group of Vietnam and other military veterans, combining meditation and community dialogues and activities ("singing, hugging, dancing") with writing.
This sturdy volume of more than 600 pages presents the writing of more than 80 veterans. These are personal and searingly honest accounts of both war and peace, including some uncomfortable observations on the peace movement. (Joe Lamb for example writes that he found that "the unexpected kindness and tolerance that I often encountered in the military were sometimes jarringly absent in my interactions with the civilian peace movement.")
These pieces--essays, narratives, poems and hybrids of several forms--testify to the need for comprehensive skills of peace--inner, outer and interface--for making peace in the world requires making peace within us and among us.
That Koa Books in Hawaii published this volume is especially fitting given Kingston's rapturous descriptions in the Fifth Book of Peace of her fictional character's adventures there (Sing, the protagonist of her novel, Tripmaster Monkey.) This book is essential for its eloquence, and the reality check against more theoretical and programmatic works on the themes of war and peace.
Edited by Maxine Hong Kingston
Koa Books
In her book The Fifth Book of Peace (which I reviewed for the San Francisco Chronicle, and was complimented by the author for understanding it), Maxine Hong Kingston described her work with a group of Vietnam and other military veterans, combining meditation and community dialogues and activities ("singing, hugging, dancing") with writing.
This sturdy volume of more than 600 pages presents the writing of more than 80 veterans. These are personal and searingly honest accounts of both war and peace, including some uncomfortable observations on the peace movement. (Joe Lamb for example writes that he found that "the unexpected kindness and tolerance that I often encountered in the military were sometimes jarringly absent in my interactions with the civilian peace movement.")
These pieces--essays, narratives, poems and hybrids of several forms--testify to the need for comprehensive skills of peace--inner, outer and interface--for making peace in the world requires making peace within us and among us.
That Koa Books in Hawaii published this volume is especially fitting given Kingston's rapturous descriptions in the Fifth Book of Peace of her fictional character's adventures there (Sing, the protagonist of her novel, Tripmaster Monkey.) This book is essential for its eloquence, and the reality check against more theoretical and programmatic works on the themes of war and peace.
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