the decade the rainforest died by Teresa Mei Chuc
A poem on the effects of war on animals, plants, and people.
First published in Kyoto Journal (Issue 79) in 2014.
From the author:
I wrote the poem, “the decade the rainforest died,” because I wanted to show the impact of war on not just humans, but also the natural environment, the land, the plants, the animals, the water. During the American war in Việt Nam, chemicals, including Agent Orange, were sprayed over our ancient rainforests in order to eliminate the forest cover and crops. Some of these rainforests are millions of years old. A rainforest ecosystem could take thousands of years to regenerate. Old growth trees take hundreds of years to mature and so many animals and people depend on them. There is a delicate balance in these rainforests that gets disrupted when herbicides are sprayed, landmines explode, and bombs are dropped. Though the American war happened about half a century ago, the effects on our rainforests can still be felt to this day.
From poet Rick Kearns:
“Chuc’s clear voice explains the horrendous effects of depleted uranium, napalm and Agent Orange on the entire living world, the world of water, plants and people. Other writers have approached these themes of course but part of what sets Chuc’s poetry apart is that precise, poetic vision that while it helps us comprehend the full effects of the devastation through the details of a child’s funeral, it is still infused with grace.”
Read “the decade the rainforest died” here.
Teresa Mei Chuc was born in Sài Gòn, Việt Nam and immigrated to the U.S. as a refugee with her mother and brother shortly after the Việt Nam War while her father was imprisoned in a Viet Cong “reeducation” camp for nine years. Teresa Mei Chuc is the author of three collections of poetry, Invisible Light (Many Voices Press, 2018), Keeper of the Winds (FootHills Publishing, 2014) and Red Thread (Fithian Press, 2012). She teaches literature and writing at a public high school in Los Angeles, California. Teresa’s poetry chapbook, Incidental Takes, is forthcoming from Hummingbird Press.
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