In the poem Beautiful Wreckage by W.D. Ehrhart, the most significant literary term I found was imagery. “Instead of the place of rotting sandbags, incoming heavy artillery, rats and mud.” (Ehrhart). That quote is an example of imagery because that description is really referring to how it’s the opposite of Heaven when you’re at war. This helped me understand how the war had an impact on the soldier's life and can compare what you see vs what he sees. The author's perspective on war is that it’s not beautiful at all. Rather it’s terrifying. In the poem of Bosnia Tune by Joseph Brodsky, the most significant literary term was repetition. “by large, not knowing why, people die. …self-restraint, etc. –whereby people die. …where our cherubs dread to fly, people die. …kissing your child a lullaby, people die.” (Brodsky). The quote from Bosnia Tune shows that when people are doing their daily life things people are dying and it repeats itself which is an example of repetition. This gave me that when I’m doing something, when people are doing something, people around the world are dying. The author’s perspective is that while we live our daily lives there is soldiers at risk for their lives that are dying for us and don’t seem to care
In the poem Beautiful Wreckage by W.D. Ehrhart, the two most significant literary terms I found were repetition and imagery.
“What if I didn’t shoot the old lady running away from our patrol, or the old man in the back of the head, or the boy in the marketplace?” (Ehrhart 1-4). This quote represents imagery because you can picture in your mind the narrator shooting an old lady and a boy in the back of his head.
“What if the angels were Ames and Ski…What if none of it happened the way I said?” (Ehrheart 17, 21). This quote represents repetition because he keeps saying “what if”. It seems like he has so much regret that the only thing he can say to validate himself is “what if”.
The overall message is that war makes you blame yourself and forces you to take other people’s lives.
In the poem The last Lie by Bruce Weigl, the two most significant literary terms I found were imagery and pov.
“He didn’t toss the can, he wound up and hung it on the child’s forehead and she was backwards into the dust of our trucks” (Weigl 5-7). The quote represents imagery because you can picture the soldier winded up his arm and throwing an open can so hard that it embeds itself in a little girl’s forehead.
“I grit my teeth to myself to remember that girl smiling as she fought off her brothers and sisters” (Weigl 15-16). This quote represents pov because he is cringing and hurt by the fact that he saw a girl smiling while having to fight her brothers and sisters
The overall message of the poem seems to be that in war survival is more important than processing emotions.
- Sallee
Mrs. Chick
10/13/2022
In the poem “Beautiful Wreckage” by W.D. Ehrhart , the two most significant literary terms I found were repetition and imagery. Reading this poem you can tell the author wants the reader to imagine the things this soldier went through. Throughout the poem images start to come in your head of what had happened in this war. What they are feeling, seeing, and understanding. ¨What if the boy-but he didn't/ have a grenade¨ (Ehrhart 5-6) Quote #1 is stating a contemplation of regret. Repeating the same phrases, ¨what if¨, asking this repetitive phrase of asking, ´what if i didn't do this…’ reflecting the trauma of war. ¨What if i didn't shoot the old lady /running away from our patrol,/ or the old man in the back of the head/, or the boy in the marketplace?¨ (Ehrhart 1-4) This quote shows the imagery part of this poem. Describing where this guy was shot and what location gives you the mind to be in the place and see where he was at the time and how it happened.
In the poem “Redeployment” by Harold Nemerov, the two most significant literary terms I found were repetition and imagery. When getting a good understanding of the contact of this poem you really begin to see and understand the trauma this person went through. This soldier has come home from war but is having a hard time adjusting. An example of repetition is… ¨they say the war is over¨ (Nemerov 1) when the author is talking about a trigger point it starts with ¨they say the war is over but…¨ When giving examples when reading you tend to see what this author is describing giving you that imagery characteristic. ¨A soldier's dead blue eyeballs that he found/ somewhere- hard as calk, and blue as skate./ He clicks them in his pocket while he talks/.” (Nemerov 8-10) This is an example of imagery as the author is describing the state of these eyes this soldier has found.
