Thursday, September 25, 2014

Discussion Questions/Vietnam War Poetry

AGENDA:

Finish presented the group discussions from yesterday.

READ/DISCUSS:   Vietnam War Poetry Handout

By Robert Bly b. 1926 Robert Bly
We drive between lakes just turning green;   
Late June. The white turkeys have been moved   
A second time to new grass.
How long the seconds are in great pain!   
Terror just before death,
Shoulders torn, shot
From helicopters. “I saw the boy
being tortured with a telephone generator,”   
The sergeant said.
“I felt sorry for him
And blew his head off with a shotgun.”   
These instants become crystals,
Particles
The grass cannot dissolve. Our own gaiety   
Will end up
In Asia, and you will look down in your cup   
And see
Black Starfighters.
Our own cities were the ones we wanted to bomb!   
Therefore we will have to
Go far away
To atone
For the suffering of the stringy-chested   
And the short rice-fed ones, quivering   
In the helicopter like wild animals,
Shot in the chest, taken back to be questioned.



 

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