Thirty-five years ago R. L. Barth was a Marine patrol leader in the First Reconnaissance Battalion in Vietnam. Today he is a poet's poet who articulates the harsh realities and ironies of war in the style of the great classical satirists. Barth writes about Vietnam, but his soldier's take on the war is startlingly applicable to the conflicts of the twenty-first century or to any war that happens to be going on.
R.L. Barth's Deeply Dug In (University of New Mexico Press, 78 pp., $16.95) is a collection of short, satiric, linked poems that are based on the poet's tour of duty as a Marine patrol leader in the First Reconnaissance Battalion in Vietnam. The title comes from the Roman epigram that also gave one of the best Vietnam War films its title: "Go tell the Spartans that we hold this land, deeply dug in, obeying their command."
