Opinion Forum

Dead or Alive: W.D. Ehrhart on War and Peace

September 1st, 2012

By Jan Barry We are the ones you sent to fight a war You didn’t know a thing about. Those of us who lived Have tried to tell you what went wrong… (from “A Relative Thing”) The expanding bookshelf of works by W.D. Ehrhart—20 books, at last count—started with a ticked off Marine who barely […]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: books, literature, poetry, teacher, veterans, Vietnam, W.D. Ehrhart, war
Categories: Life, Military, Politics | Comments (0) | Home

Post Traumatic Poetry

July 9th, 2010

By Jan Barry Imagine if the US government promoted poetry by war veterans as ardently as it churns out lavishly designed, taxpayer-funded military recruitment campaigns. Imagine the Pentagon switching from selling patriotic hoopla to conveying the real deal of war’s horrific legacies. Here’s what such an astounding change in perspective might look like: “FM 22-51 […]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: literature, poetry, Post Traumatic Press, post traumatic stress, Vietnam, war
Categories: Arts, Life, Military | Comments (1) | Home

Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

July 2nd, 2010

By Tom Carter The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest began in 1982 in the English Department of San Jose State University. Simply put, it awards prizes in “a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.” Anyone can enter, and multiple entries can be submitted. I look […]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: awards, Bulwer-Lytton, fiction contest, literature, prose
Categories: Education, History, Humor | Comments (3) | Home

“The Vampire Diaries”

May 31st, 2009

I’ve had an interest lately in vampire books. (“Twilight” got me into that!) My grandma told me about a series called “The Vampire Diaries.” There are five books in the series. She said she read them when she was younger and said they were really good. So, I got the series and started reading them. The […]

Articles written by Amber
Tags: literature
Categories: Arts, Life | Comments (2) | Home

Writers at Work

May 2nd, 2009

Writing is an essential nourishment for writers. “I felt so much better doing that,” an Iraq war vet turned poet and playwright said, exhaling as though he’d just pumped oxygen into his muscles by jogging around the block, after jotting down some thoughts during a writers’ workshop the other day. Earlier, one of the participants […]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Iraq, literature, war
Categories: Arts, Life, Military | Comments (1) | Home