Poets Yusef Komenyaka, Hugh Martin, and Brian Turner all compare to each other through their ability to capture the uncertainty of war. In Komenyaka's "Camouflaging the Chimera," he is successful at describing a scene where soldiers, camouflaged by the natural elements of Vietnam, are awaiting an ambush. In this scene, the reader can feel the uncertainty for what is about to happen. Through Koemyaka's descriptive nature, one can place themselves in the Vietnam bush, with his/her heart pumping and adrenaline flowing.
I also think this is something that Brian Turner is successful at doing in the majority of his poems in Here, Bullet. As this book is a collection of poems, the general flow from one poem of the next provides an element of uncertainty that most single, stand-alone, poems cannot achieve. More specifically, in Turner's poem What Every Soldier Should Know, he highlights the uncertainty be describing the different places soldiers would encounter IED's, or improvised explosive devices. Furthermore, at the end of the poem Turner says,
"Small children who will play with you,
old men with their talk, women who offer chai--
any any one of them
may dance over your body tomorrow"
I found this line very powerful as it outlines the ultimate feeling of uncertainty and not knowing who the enemy is.
I don't think war has changed that much since Vietnam. Besides the advances in technology and the changes in battle tactics, war is much of the same. It still boils down to geo-politics, and men/women fighting for something they misunderstand, and a country backing their soldiers up for something the people misunderstand.
I agree with your comment that each of the writers accurately capture the emotion of uncertainty. However I disagree that war is the same since Vietnam. I say that because you listed the two biggest factors of why war has changed. Those factors have led to more of mass killing, and destructive wars.
ReplyDeleteThe methods of war have remained quite similar since Vietnam. Weapons have improved, and the reasons used to justify war have become much more complex, but guerrilla warfare is the name of the game these days. The enemy hides in the general population. Hence the uncertainty you speak of. You never know who wants you dead out of all the people you see out in the field.
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