cover image Summers of Vietnam

Summers of Vietnam

Mary Kinzie. Sheep Meadow Press, $10.95 (153pp) ISBN 978-0-935296-83-9

Kinzie ( The Threshold of the Year ) virtually offers two books in this ample collection. The poems in the first half, ``Seasons of Vietnam,'' are propelled by confident rhythms and her striking persona, the girlfriend of a naval officer who refused to serve in Vietnam. Descriptions of their relationship alternate with glimpses of Portsmouth, N. H., where he has been imprisoned; by turns lyrical and prosaic, the intensity of Kinzie's language sustains her theme even through the section's weaker efforts. The volume's second half, ``Masked Women,'' is less specific in its referents. ``He thrust aside her clothing. / He opened up her flesh, / Broke the nearby mirrors / And shattered all the glass,'' begins ``Modern Love.'' Kinzie gracefully alludes to literature and art, adding a signature eloquence to the formal structures here. (Jan.)