Blog 7 - JWE

In the book "Dien Cai Dau", the author Yusef Komunyakaa uses poems to illustrate the war. Major themes in his poems include race because he was African-American and also visual imagery that m akes you believe you are right there with him.

The first poem I choose to discuss was "Tunnels" on page 5. I choose this poem because tunnels where such a huge part of the war for the Vietnamese and such a downfall for the American soldiers who were fighting the VC. Yusef's imagery is astounding in this poem and he makes it feel like you are down there with the soldier. He makes me feel the same fear and anxiety the soldier felt as he inched throught the tunnel. "Every concerned shadow has a life to bargain with" is a very powerful line in this poem. It really just shows how these soldiers were not worrying about bugs or roots or even the darkness but all they worried about was leaving the tunnel alive. "Loving the weight of his shotgun" shows how much they relied on their weapons for survival and how they knew it was the only thing keeping them alive.

The second poem I choose is "Thanks" on page 44. It really shows how all the soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War thought that the nature around them saved their lives. In the poem he thanks the tree for stopping a bullet and a butterfly for pointing out a mine and usually people take these things for granted. The soldiers believed that something like "mother nature" was watching over their every move and keeping them alive. The soldiers realize how frail their life is and how little they have done to deserve it. The theme of giving thanks to nature is prevalent in most of the other literature we have read about the Vietnam War.

"A Greenness Taller Than Gods" is the third poem I choose from the book, found on page 11. The most appealling thing about this poem is the sensory imagery and the fact that Yusef makes the reader feel like they are walking through the jungle. Also, the quote "unaware our shadows have untied from us, wandered off & gotten lost" is very typical of war stories. It shows how the soldiers lose part of them once they begin to fight and most soldiers will never "find their shadows" after the war. They lose their innocence along with their shadows in the jungles of Vietnam. The poem also includes "torch birds" which could be looked at as a symbol for helicopters dropping napalm on the Vietnamese.

Through all of Yusef's poems, a broader sense of the war can be realized than just reading one poem. The each tell their own tale and each teach us a different lesson.