A War Poem

I've noticed that often, songs/poems about war work better than books about war. Often, the Vietnam War becomes a hackneyed topic in literature. So much of modern literature seems to have been dedicated to the Vietnam War. At one point, we stop and wonder, "what's the point of it all?" We're never going to know how war veterans feel because the simple fact of the matter is, we have never been to war. The writer is either begging for sympathy (a wasted/wasteful emotion) or trying to get his story and his feelings out. Why are songs/poems a better medium? Well for one thing, usually, poems are short (unless you're talking about the Odyssey) and poems will focus on one emotion which is transmitted to the reader through the poem's artistic nature. Sadly enough, what we're ultimately concerned with is entertainment. Even when we think we want to gain insight and be enlightened, it seems as though our ulterior motive is entertainment. We want to have other-worldly experiences. We want to sit in the comfort of our homes and get a glimpse into what the warfront looks like. What a good text makes us realize is that the idea of war is drastically different from the actual reality of war. But this message won't get to us, we won't realize how bad and horrible war is until the writer appeals to our interest.

Though I am completely annoyed with Shay's book, I love the fact that it has spurred so much class discussion. All of a sudden, we have so much to say because many of us don't like this book. I like the fact that we read a poem and heard a song, while reading this because the song and the poem gets to us while Shay's book doesn't. Perhaps the most valuable thing I've gotten out of this class is an appreciation for poetry, especially after I found myself completely immersed in Sylvia Plath's poem.

Here's a poem written about the Vietnam War by Bruce Weigl:

Song of Napalm

for my wife

After the storm, after the rain stopped pounding,
We stood in the doorway watching horses
Walk off lazily across the pasture’s hill.
We stared through the black screen,
Our vision altered by the distance
So I thought I saw a mist
Kicked up around their hooves when they faded
Like cut-out horses
Away from us.
The grass was never more blue in that light, more
Scarlet; beyond the pasture
Trees scraped their voices into the wind, branches
Crisscrossed the sky like barbed wire
But you said they were only branches.

Okay. The storm stopped pounding.
I am trying to say this straight: for once
I was sane enough to pause and breathe
Outside my wild plans and after the hard rain
I turned my back on the old curses. I believed
They swung finally away from me ...

But still the branches are wire
And thunder is the pounding mortar,
Still I close my eyes and see the girl
Running from her village, napalm
Stuck to her dress like jelly,
Her hands reaching for the no one
Who waits in waves of heat before her.

So I can keep on living,
So I can stay here beside you,
I try to imagine she runs down the road and wings
Beat inside her until she rises
Above the stinking jungle and her pain
Eases, and your pain, and mine.

But the lie swings back again.
The lie works only as long as it takes to speak
And the girl runs only as far
As the napalm allows
Until her burning tendons and crackling
Muscles draw her up
into that final position

Burning bodies so perfectly assume. Nothing
Can change that; she is burned behind my eyes
And not your good love and not the rain-swept air
And not the jungle green
Pasture unfolding before us can deny it.
(Poetryfoundation.org)

I wrote a poetic analysis paper on this poem for my AP English class during my senior year of high school. I remember flipping through the pages of a huge anthology book and being thoroughly disappointed by the selection of poetry it had to offer until i came across this one. I was moved by Weigl's ability to take one image and create such a powerful effect through it. It pertains to the subject at hand because it is captures post traumatic stress disorder so well. While at war, the soldier becomes overwhelmed to the extent that everything reminds him of the image of the warfront. The narrator of this poem looks at trees and he sees barbed wire. He hears thunder and he thinks of "pounding mortar." He writes, "she is burned behind my eyes." He creates the image of a burning girl which we see through his eyes and then he uses the word "burned" to describe the irreversible effect it had on his mind.

This poem grabs our interest before breaking the harsh reality to us. Once we are engaged, we can be unsettled into getting the author's point. The title of the poem is rather ironic. A song would be melodious and perhaps pleasant but napalm is a toxic substance that burns on contact with skin. He describes a tranquil melancholy setting in which he is disturbed by his own thoughts. The tranquility is then disturbed by the image of a girl described almost majestically--"I try to imagine she runs down the road and wings / Beat inside her until she rises." He transforms this image in his mind into one that is more beautiful than deathly. Then he realizes he can't fool himself into believing that she flew away from her pain gracefully. He writes, "And the girl runs only as far / As the napalm allows / Until her burning tendons and crackling / Muscles draw her up / into that final position / Burning bodies so perfectly assume." This is a horrific image. It allows the reader to see for himself what a war veteran has seen which leads to the understanding that war is a terrible thing. Most importantly, it allows the reader to understand why these war veterans are suffering from PTSD.