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In Memory of Horace Coleman

By W. D. Ehrhart

I am deeply saddened by the news that Horace Coleman has died, though it doesn't come as a surprise. I had known he was in poor health for some time. I only ever met Horace twice: a long time ago when a group of us veteran-poets read in New York City—I think it was at the Public Theatre in the early 1980s, and again at the VVAW 40th Anniversary in Chicago—but I've known of him and been in touch with him since 1975 when Jan Barry and I were compiling Demilitarized Zones: Veterans After Vietnam. We used several of Horace's poems in that book. He subsequently published several collections of his own, including Between a Rock & a Hard Place and In the Grass, and when I was putting together Carrying the Darkness: the Poetry of the Vietnam War in 1985, and Unaccustomed Mercy: Soldier-Poets of the Vietnam War in 1988, Horace ended up with multiple poems in both books. I am sorry Horace is gone, but I am glad that his voice will continue to be heard through his poetry.

W. D. Ehrhart is a long-time VVAW member, poet, and author.

Horace Coleman at VVAW's 40th Anniversary in Chicago, 2007.