Vietnamese Revolutionary Talks to Jesus

Annotation — Australian & New Zealand Songs

Denis Kevans (15 January 1939–2005), a poet from Canberra, Australia, active in the Australian 60s/70s protest movement, taking part in several prominent demonstrations. He wrote, recited, and recorded the anti-Vietnam War poems "Slouch of Vietnam" and "The Great Prawn War", discussed above. On this album, he recited the poem "Vietnamese Revolutionary Talks to Jesus" (Currency Folk # YPRX 2125), which as suggested in the title, was centred around a dialogue between Jesus and someone involved in the Vietnam War. As Jesus recalled his mother standing by the cross, the revolutionary remembered: "I stooped to see my mother's jellied flesh", a reference to chemical weapon Napalm B - a jellied gasoline mixture, with polystyrene, benzene, and gasoline. Declared a war-crime since 1980, the US government extensively used this weapon during the Vietnam conflict, dropping 388,000 tons on Indochina between 1963 and 1973.123 As Jesus noted that his friends carried him to a grave, the revolutionary said that "I was shallow-buried with forty others", thus recalling the massacres of the Vietnam War.4 Sources1Napalm: An American Biography (Robert M. Neer, 2013)↩2Times Higher Education: Napalm an…

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

Poem recited by Kevans on the album shared with John Dengate.

About the artist

Denis Kevans (15 January 1939 - 2005) - poet from Canberra, ACT, active in the 1960s-70s protest movement; also wrote "Slouch of Vietnam" and "The Great Prawn War".

Themes

Napalm · Religion · Civilian Casualties · VC · Anti-War

In collections

Australian & New Zealand Songs