The following transcript is provided for accessibility only. Layout, formatting, and typography of poems may differ from the original text. We recommend referring to the original, published works when possible to experience the poems as intended by their authors.
[Music intro]
LYNNE THOMPSON: Hello! My name is Lynne Thompson, Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles and I’m so happy to welcome listeners to this installment of Poems on Air, a podcast supported by the Los Angeles Public Library. Every week, I’ll present the work of poets I admire, poets who you should know, and poets who have made a substantial and inimitable contribution to the art and craft of poetry.
LYNNE THOMPSON: This week Poems on Air begins its celebration of the finalists for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Prize by spotlighting the poet, Hoa Nguyen. Nguyen was born in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, and subsequently educated in the U.S. Currently residing in Canada, she won the 2017 Griffin Prize and has taught widely from Princeton to St. Mary’s College of California as well as at the Banff Centre for the Arts, to name a few. Her work has been widely published and reminds us that some atrocities continue, inexplicably, to occur.
LYNNE THOMPSON: Today’s poem is "Napalm Notes" by Hoa Nguyen.
Napalm Notes
Developed in secret at Harvard produced by Dow Chemical An efficient incendiary formula perfected on Valentine’s Day 1942 A thickened gasoline Can be dropped from planes [stanza break] (napalm bombs) also flamethrowers 8 million tons of bombs in Vietnam Burns at 1,500-2,200ºF (1/5th as hot as the surface of the sun) Very sticky stable also relatively cheap
LYNNE THOMPSON: The Los Angeles Poet Laureate was created as a joint program between the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Los Angeles Public Library and this podcast is available wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!
[Music outro]
- Back to Poems on Air: Episode 57
DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a certified or verbatim transcript, but rather represents only the context of the class or meeting, subject to the inherent limitations of real-time captioning. The primary focus of real-time captioning is general communication access and as such this document is not suitable, acceptable, nor is it intended for use in any type of legal proceeding. Transcript provided by the author.