The first poem I chose to interpret in Dien Cai Dau is "We Never Know." The author brings up two recurring themes in this poem, the first being the beauty of war. Komunyakaa starts this piece off with "He danced with tall grass for a moment, like he was swaying with a woman." This is a very graceful, gentile image. As this solier is being fired at, he seems to be dancing as he spends his last few seconds as a living human being. Another aspect of this poem is that the enemy is human. After the man is downed, the speaker ventured over to him and found a crumbled photograph. This may or not be the "woman back home" trope, but either way it is a person near and dear to the enemy. Directly after that, the speaker says he "fell in love", another uniquely human experience. This poem aims to bring out the more beautiful things in war.
Another unique poem in this book is "Toys in a Field." The author depicts young children playing on abandoned gun mounts and wasted helicopter remains, instead of playgrounds and jumpropes. The activites that the children take up in search of fun is essentially what the soldiers are doing in the war. This provides a stark contrast between childhood innocence and the seriousness of violence. The author says that "their play is silent as distant rain," creating a bizarre image of children playing but making no noise. The overall image painted by this poem is the grotesque reality of how some Vietnamese children grew up.
The last poem I chose was "Tu Do Street." This poem speaks in images about the racial divide in the Vietnam War. Komunyakaa speaks of the bars on a road. They are segregated, and neither is allowed in the others bar. The first line, "Music divides the evening," sets the tone for the entire poem. The author also writes of "men drawing lines in the dust." Both black and white soldiers are only brought together by "machine-gun fire" -- the only thing it seems that they have in common. Race was a large issue in this (and many other) wars, and the poet addresses this issue in this piece.
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