~JANET MCCANN~

KAY MULLEN: A LONG REMEMBERING: RETURN TO VIETNAM

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The poems are not about the Babylift only, clearly,
but examine ideas and feelings about what home means. 
They look at the devastation war causes — and become
quietly powerful arguments against war.  Human and spiritual
values are invoked and explored in a non-dogmatic,
open-hearted way.  These poems have a generosity of spirit
 that communicates itself to the reader.

In 1975, Operation Babylift brought more than 2000 orphans or abandoned children for adoption into homes all over the world. It had a tragic beginning. The first military evacuation flight, a cargo plane loaded with over 300 crew, children and adult escorts, crashed shortly after takeoff, and many of the babies and their escorts were killed. This tragedy raised awareness of and sympathy for the project, and many successful evacuations followed. Operation Babylift passed into history, but not for those babies who were brought up by their adoptive parents, and not for these parents themselves. Kay Mullen has written a tender and beautiful book of poems about her return to Vietnam with her adopted son, now a young man, and his meeting with the land of his birth, and about the impression his land made upon her, a visitor.
    A Long Remembering is Kay Mullen's second collection of poetry; her first was Let Morning Begin (2001).  Her sensitive eye for detail and her knowledge of human relationships provide for spellbinding poetry. Her sympathy for her son's viewpoint blends with her own vision. Past blends into present.  The details are rendered in swift, telling strokes, and they are rich with symbolic suggestion. Many of us have only the vaguest image of rice paddies when someone says the word "Vietnam."  This book is rich with the culture of the country and the tortured history of its inhabitants.
    The poems are not about the Babylift only, clearly, but examine ideas and feelings about what home means.  They look at the devastation war causes — and become quietly powerful arguments against war.  Human and spiritual values are invoked and explored in a non-dogmatic, open-hearted way.  These poems have a generosity of spirit that communicates itself to the reader.
    The book — with a lovely cover by an anonymous Vietnamese artist — is divided into three almost equal parts.  The first part, "The Return," chronicles the visit to Vietnam of the young adopted son and his parents.  "In the Wake of War" captures glimpses of the son's past and that of his countrymen, and "Rivers Run On" is a broader picture of religion, culture, and daily life in Vietnam.
    In the poems of "The Return," mothers' and sons' perspectives are given in the poems of departure and reunion.  In "Music Box," she addresses her baby son, arriving with "all you own in a paper sack . . .," including one toy, a music box that plays "Its a small world."  Most of the poems are swift, memorable vignettes of her visit with him to his homeland — word-photographs, subtle haiku.
    In the next section, the poems explore the son's legacy.  The lost birthparents appear in the imagining of the speaker, who seems to be communicating with them.  The painful memories of the crash alternate with thoughts of the son's wedding.  These poems' arrangement suggests a timelessness, a dimension in which all events coexist.
    The final section includes well-sketched, evocative scenes of Eastern life and thought.  "Bonsai at the Potters Stall" describes the miniature potted trees:  "Oranges / the size of marbles dangle / from trees with glossy leaves."  The conclusion shows the potter's hope that through his craft, he is able to keep his world under his control.

                             The potter
 
        prizes his bonsai children
        who will never grow up,

        never leave home.

    Poems like "Eight Confucian Categories of Sound" and "Zen Garden" communicate the feeling of the Vietnamese life  through vibrant multi-sense images.  Brief notes at the end help locate some of the poems in family and local history.
    A Long Remembering helps us remember the events, but the poems are much more than a history lesson.  They remind us how personal the losses and devastation of war are and how important each fragile human being is to the scheme of things.   These are anything but despairing poems; they are luminous with transcendent values and they provide a sense of healing.  A Long Remembering shows how love is as strong a force as war, and as enduring.



Mullen, Kay. A Long Remembering: Return to Vietnam. Kanona, NY: Foothills Publishing, 2006. ISBN: 0-941053-94-6  $15.00

 
 

© by Janet McCann