Independent study for november 7

Poems Relating to Veterans and/or Veteran’s Day Brian Turner’s poem, “ Here, Bullet” is a poem that describes the bullet and the human reactions to the bullet. He depicts the bullet as an evil thing. The poem is packed with figurative language and mostly personification which is the major style in this poem. By personifying the bullet, Turner speaks to the bullet as a villain and even challenges it. He says, “ And I dare you to finish / what you’ve started”. He described the pain caused by the bullet to the body as an explosion which causes pain and eventually kills as shown by the phrase, “ Bullet, here is where the world ends, every time”. The significance of this poem is that Turner has removed the blame to the terrorists who fire the gun but instead, he blames the gun by making it responsible through personification.
Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem “ Facing It” is another military poem about a painful experience suffered by a Vietnam War veteran when he visited a Vietnam veteran Memorial. Komunyakaa uses the first person to create a symbolic setting of the memorial sculptures by drawing its physical properties. His descriptions create a ghostly reflection of the settings which has been clogged by his military experiences. The poem shows that the many survivors of the war come to a dead end upon visiting a memorial site. The military people are also taken to be unable to experience the present or the future without interference from the memories of the war. As such, they keep on grieving even when safe from the war.
“ The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” by Randall Jarrell is a short poem which is filled with condensed brevity and shocking violence. This gives the poem a rather immediate and durable impact to the readers. This is partly due to the tittle of the poem depicting that it is written from the poem of view of the dead gunner. Jarrell paints an uncomfortable picture about his sympathetic situation by precise choice of diction. The gunner seems like a small child who has lost the comfort of his biological mother to land into the hand of the state. By alluring to paradox of ‘ birth” and “ death”, he is able to present the trauma undergone by gunners.
“ Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen is a poem which describes the general conditions of the military in war especially when attacked and presents the effects of such an experience through the eyes of a person who has lived through the experience. The poem depicts the soldier’s situation as utterly frightening and life-threatening when they are gas attacked and have to retreat. The soldiers live though had moments as they are fatigued and are unable to walk as some are even limping. Even at death, the soldiers are happy to patriotic to their country.
” 11/11/11″ poem by Christina Lovin is a description of the pain which the society and families of fallen soldiers go through when they remember their departure. The pain of losing people in war distracts normal occurrences every time bereaved people hear the funeral drum in commemoration of the dead soldiers. We can feel the Lovin’s pain as she remember the death of her here brothers who died in war. This poem is a reflection of pain from the view point of the society as opposed to the soldiers themselves.
Works Cited
Brian Turner, Here, Bullet. Alice James Books; 1 edition, November 1, 2005. Print.
Christina Lovin, 11/11/11. English and Theatre Department at Eastern Kentucky University. 2007. Print.
Randall Jarrell. The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner. B0007JK5ZE. 1945. Print.
Yusef Komunyakaa, Facing It. Wesleyan University Press. 198. Print.
Wilfred Owen. Dulce et Decorum Est. The Avid Tutor; 1 edition (4 Oct 2012)