The two poems I chose from the poetry of witness folder are “Songs of Napalm”, by Bruce Weigl and “Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting”, by Kevin C. Powers. The Reason I chose these two poems were because they relate to each other in a way. Both poems have a background from people who were in the war. The First poem I read was Songs of Napalm which gave me a few mixed feelings. The beginning of the poem had me a bit lost, but as I got towards the end I had a bit of disgust in mind. You could not tell what the poem was about just reading the first few lines. The way Weigl described the brightness of the explosion in the line that stated, “The grass was never more blue in that light, more / Scarlet; beyond the pasture” (Weigl, Lines 10 and 11) was very breath-taking after I found out what the poem was talking about. I think this poem brings sadness to the reader because of its content, unlike the other poem I read.
The poem Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting is similar to Songs of Napalm because the two authors are in the war, but Powers poem is a love letter which brings a completely different emotion to the reader. He has a strange way of expressing his feelings towards whoever he is writing to. He states in the first line, “I tell her I love her like not killing” (Powers, Line 1). I find this strange because most people would not use feelings of war to describe their love for someone. This poem did not create much of an emotion for me; I was more baffled than anything because of the references Powers uses. The title and content of the poem make it seem like a love letter but when the author uses statements like “I tell her in a letter that will stink,” (Powers, Line 5) it redirects my mind from the thoughts of a typical love letter. Both poems were great and had tons of imagery that really gave the appearance of what exactly it was they were seeing and going through.
Works Cited
Powers, Kevin C. "Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting by Kevin C. Powers : Poetry Magazine [poem/magazine] : Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry." The Poetry Foundation : Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry. Poetry Founddation, Feb. 2009. Web. 10 Feb. 2011. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=182821>.
Weigl, Bruce. "Poetry Foundation." The Poetry Foundation : Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry. Groove/Atlantic Inc., 1999. Web. 10 Feb. 2011. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/print.html?id=171470>.
After reading these two war poems I decided to look into more war poems. If anyone is interested, THIS site has many plenty of great poems that also contain lots of imagery and could be classified as poetry of witness.
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