SOURCE: “The Field of Vision in Vietnamese Poetry,” in Mountain River, Kevin Bowen, Nguyen Ba Chung, Bruce Weigl, eds., University of Massachusetts Press, 1998, pp. xi–xvii.

In the following excerpt, Chung discusses the importance of poetry to Vietnamese cultural identity through French colonialization and American involvement in the Vietnamese conflict to the early 1990s.

From 179 B.C.E. until 938 C.E., China ruled Giao Chau—the country we now know as Viet Nam. In 1077, during the Sung dynasty, the Chinese sought to reimpose their rule. When the Vietnamese forces, commanded by Marshal Ly Thuong Kiet, faced the superior Sung army along the Cau River, Marshal Kiet composed the following poem to rally his troops:

The Southern Emperor is to reside in the Southern land. This has been clearly marked in the Book of Heaven. If unruly troops from afar dare to encroach, They will certainly face annihilation. 

Asserting...