W.D. Ehrhart

William Daniel Ehrhart (born September 30, 1948) is an American poet, writer, scholar and Vietnam veteran. Ehrhart has been called "the dean of Vietnam war poetry." Donald Anderson, editor of War, Literature & the Arts, said Ehrhart’s Vietnam-Perkasie: A Combat Marine Memoir, is “the best single, unadorned, gut-felt telling of one American’s route into and out of America’s longest war.” Ehrhart has been an active member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). He was a 1993 Pew Fellowships in the Arts.

Life
Immediately upon graduating High School in June 1966, Ehrhart joined the United States Marine Corps, serving three years, including 13 months in Vietnam. Ehrhart, an Infantry Sergeant, was awarded the Purple Heart for injuries he received while fighting in Hue City. He subsequently earned bachelor's and master's degrees, and (at the age of 52) a doctorate. Over the years, he has held a wide variety of jobs, from merchant seaman to newspaper reporter to high school teacher. He currently teaches at The Haverford School.

Ehrhart began writing when he was 15 years old, and has been writing more or less continuously ever since. His first published work, a poem about Swarthmore College, appeared seven years later in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the following year eight of his poems were included in Winning Hearts and Minds: War Poems by Vietnam Veterans. Exclusively a poet until he was almost 30, he has since written and published a wide variety of nonfiction prose from 400-word newspaper commentaries to 40-page scholarly essays to 400-page personal narratives.

The influence of Ehrhart's encounter with the Vietnam War can readily be seen in his writing, but though he is known primarily as a "Vietnam War poet," in fact his subject matter ranges widely. He has written essays and articles on such topics as radio disc jockeys, tugboats on the Delaware River, the Internal Revenue Service, and a variety of modern and contemporary poets including William Wantling to Daniel Hoffman. His wife and daughter are major sources of inspiration for his poetry. His poems also reflect his respect for nature, his love of friends, his active engagement with the world around him, and his consternation at the human condition.

Poetry

 * Beautiful Wreckage: New & Selected Poems, Adastra Press, 1999.
 * The Distance We Travel, Adastra Press, 1993.
 * Just for Laughs, Viet Nam Generation & Burning Cities Press, 1990.
 * The Outer Banks & Other Poems, Adastra Press, 1984.
 * To Those Who Have Gone Home Tired, Thunder's Mouth Press, 1984.
 * The Samisdat Poems, Samisdat, 1980.
 * A Generation of Peace. New Voices Publishing Company, 1975.
 * A Generation of Peace (Revised), Samisdat, 1977.
 * Rootless. Samisdat, 1977.

Chapbooks: Poetry

 * Sleeping with the Dead, Adastra Press, 2006.
 * A Sort of Peace: Echoes and Images of the Vietnam War, Fox Photo Arts, 2005. (with photographer Don Fox)
 * Greatest Hits: 1970-2000, Puddinghouse Press, 2001.
 * Mostly Nothing Happens, Adastra Press,1996.
 * Winter Bells, Adastra Press, 1988.
 * Channel Fever, Backstreet Editions, 1982.
 * Matters of the Heart, Adastra Press, 1981.
 * Empire, Samisdat, 1978.

Prose

 * The Madness of It All: Essays on War, Literature, and American Life, McFarland & Co., 2002.
 * Ordinary Lives: Platoon 1005 and the Vietnam War, Temple University Press, 1999.
 * Busted: A Vietnam Veteran in Nixon's America, University of Massachuetts Press, 1995.
 * In the Shadow of Vietnam: Essays 1977-1991, McFarland & Company, Inc., 1991.
 * Passing Time: Memoir of a Vietnam Veteran Against the War, McFarland & Co., 1989.
 * Going Back: An Ex-Marine Returns to Vietnam, McFarland & Company, Inc., 1987.
 * Vietnam-Perkasie: A Combat Marine Memoir, McFarland & Company, Inc., 1983.

Edited

 * Demilitarized Zones: Veterans After Vietnam (with Jan Barry). East River Anthology, 1976.
 * Unaccustomed Mercy: Soldier-Poets of the Vietnam War. Texas Tech University Press, 1989.
 * Carrying the Darkness: Poetry of the Vietnam War. Texas Tech University Press, 1989.
 * Retrieving Bones: Stories & Poems of the Korean War (with Philip K. Jason). Rutgers University Press, 1999.