I think that war is a cruel and inhumane way to get justice. People risking their lives just to get land and pride are senseless. These poems are about the Vietnam War that took many people’s lives in the early 70’s. The poems contain descriptive writing about what the soldiers in the Vietnam War had gone through and the troubles that they had faced.
As I have read Green Beret, I have found out that this poem is both tense and dramatic.
Some of the words the author uses reflect her personality even though the author was unidentified. The only facts to present date that we now about the author are that it are a woman and she was Vietnamese. In these next few paragraphs I will be studying each stanza, looking at the language and finally comparing the two poems.
Stanza 1:
At the start of this stanza it says that he is twelve years old and I don’t know his name. The mercenaries took him and his father, whose name I do not know. This tells me that the person who is speaking, most likely the poet, does not know who the boy or father is.
It also quotes as I have said that the mercenaries took him and his father. This tells me that the mercenaries wanted the boy and father for something important or the boy and father might have done something to get them in to trouble with the army. This gets you thinking about the poem and makes you want to read on. This is a great opening line to the poem.
It then starts off the sentence saying, “ One, morning upon the High Plateau”, this makes it feel like it’s going to start off happy and pleasant and then the mercenaries say that a good fright will make him talk. This tells us that the boy has been sitting there not saying word maybe frightened or maybe brave. Then the poem goes on to the point where the mercenaries start to threaten the boy by saying, “ Right kid tell us where they are, tell us where or your father – dead.” After this, the poem describes that the boy’s eyes filled with terror. Despite this the boy still said nothing making me think that he is real brave or perhaps did not understand the English of the American soldiers.
“ Ok boy ten seconds to tell us where they are” In the last instant the silver hand shattered the sky and the forest of trees. Kill the old guy roared Green Beret and shots hammered out. This section out of the poem tells the readers that they go on to threaten him more until the point where they finally kill his father. You can almost feel what the boy felt as he saw his own father being shot behind the forests green wall.
Soldiers stood in silence, and the boy cried out. This almost feels like the world has stopped moving for the boy and the person who had loved him for twelve years had gone from his life. He didn’t know a damn thing, we killed the old guy for nothing this is what one of the soldiers says at the end of stanza one but what was going to happen in stanza two?
Stanza 2:
And the boy knew everything. This surprises you and in some way confuses you, if he knew why didn’t he save his father? This boy didn’t speak so saving the lives of others. Clearly, he would rather have all them alive then just one person.(his father)
This poem uses very strong and dramatic words that make you feel the boy’s pain.
One of the lines that stood out for me was, soldiers stood in silence, and the boy cried out. This makes a big impact to the sentence as it seemed like everyone knew what had happened. The strange thing about this poem is that it doesn’t rhyme or even sound like a poem one bit. Then what makes this a poem?
The fact that it uses free verse. This means a verse that has neither regular rhyme nor regular meter. A lot of words are also repeated here are a few. At the first two lines it repeats I don’t know his name and it also mentions green beret and on the last stanza he uses he knew all along to emphasize the dramatises of this poem. This concludes my short analysis on Green Beret.
Pig tail
I am now concentrating on pigtail. After I have done stanza one, two, three and four I shall concentrate on the language detail (metaphors, repetitive words similes ECT.). As I read through pigtail I have found many points to write about. Tasdeusz Rozewicz (Author of pigtail) has used very imaginative words in this poem that in a way make you feel and sympathise to the pain these women went throug
Tadeusz Rozewic’s work has been translated into foreign languages including English, French, German, Serbian, Serbo-Croatian, Swedish, Danish and Finnish and has received Polish state prizes and foreign awards. Adam Czerniawski translated his poem into English, which I have been reading and studying. He was born in Radomsko in 1921.
Stanza 1:
Stanza 1 starts off back in the war with the women segregated off from the men. The women are taken to have their heads shaved “ to prevent the spread of lice”. This all was lies to get them into camp. It talks about the women being transported in the poem. This to me means that they had to leave husbands brothers uncles all behind. It also talks about workmen sweeping the floors.
This tells the reader that they weren’t all women in there. They all thought they were going off for work opportunities but as we know they were going into a German camp. In the poem it quotes that the workmen gathered up all the hair. This makes the reader feel that the hair would never be seen again. It’s like they were gathering up the women soles.
Stanza 2:
The poem moves to his time period where he is looking at all the hair in the museum behind the huge glass case. In the poem he uses childish words such as stiff and cleans. In my opinion behind clean glass emphasises how clearly you can see this hair that has been there for many years. Also the stiff hair emphasises that the hair will sit there forever and ever untouched by anyone.
It also quotes that those suffocated in the gas chambers there are still pins and side combs. This emphasises the torture and pain they went through in those gas camps and the way you can still see little girl’s pins and combs really impacts on the reader. The main detail for me was the hair behind the clean glass lying there stiff for ever untouched. This really impacted me. How can such small adjectives have that much of an impact on this poem?
Stanza 3:
Looking at the hair he’s thinking of all the best bits of life that the dead women and children can never experience. He writes about the hair that’s never going to be touched, never going to be parted by the breeze or touched by any hand or lips. This gives us an idea of what they missed out in life and how they’re hair lies there forever untouched.
This is the shortest but most descriptive stanza.
Stanza 4:
In stanza 4 it goes on to explain all the clouds of hair of those who suffocated. The clouds of hair can mean a lot of things. It could be talking about the gas clouds that suffocated them or he’s talking about the hair being so old and dry that it’s starting to turn into clouds of dust. This stanza talks about the little school girls playing with their pigtails with red ribbons tied like girls you would have seen when you were young. This makes the reader feel how much of life they have missed. Going on holidays, being touched by a love one or even feeling the rain on their face. The words the writer uses in this stanza are very affective and makes the reader properly feel how much of life they have missed.
This concludes my write up on these four stanzas I will now concentrate on the language and then compare the two poems at the end.
Language:
The language used in pigtail is childish in some places like the way it uses word like stiff and clean but these words are also really affective in the way it makes the reader feel how this hair is kept. This poem does not rhyme but what makes this a poem is the repetition the use of small sentences and stanzas. The use of low-tech language makes the poem come alive. The way he has structured the poem helps in this. If you also look closely you can see if you turn your page round horizontally that the sentences of the stanzas look like buildings. This has concluded my research on pigtail I will now compare the two poems in a short paragraph.
Comparison:
When I compared these two poems I found out that they had a lot in common. First of all they’re both poems that don’t rhyme mad have a tragic storyline about the war. Green Beret is in Vietnam but pigtail is set in a German gas camp. In pigtails thousands of women died but in Green Beret only one person died. The two poems also use simple words and phrases that make the story exiting.
They are both about the Germans and the Nazis’ killing innocent people. In green beret only one boy losses his dad but in pigtail many of the women and children will have brothers husbands and uncles grieving for them. In pig tail it talks outside the storyline as well. It talks about the author in his time looking at all the hair in the museum of the dead women but in Green Beret it sticks on the one story throughout the poem. This has concluded my comparison on the two poems.