Blog#7: Dien Cai Dau RGV

Through his book of poetry titled Dien Cai Du, Yusef Komunyakaa portrays the experience of an African-American soldier during the Vietnam War. In his poem, "Hanoi Hannah," Komunyakaa discusses several themes prevalent throughout the entire book of poems. The content of this particular work is composed of the thoughts and reactions of the narrator to a radio program being broadcasted in Vietnam. The setting of this poem illustrates one of the many methods soldiers employed to escape from the hardships of war, the radio. Despite being surrounded by numerous perils, soldiers listened to the radio to ease their anxiety and reconnect with home. The broadcast also touches on the "girl back home" theme common in the Komunyakaa's work when the broadcaster, Hannah, says, "Guess what your woman's doing tonight. I think I'll let Tina Turner tell you, you homesick GIs" (Komunyakaa 13). This passage shows how often American soldiers thought about woman and how significant these women were in motivating the soldiers to stay alive. In addition, a song on the radio show reads, "you know you're dead men, don't you? You're dead as King today in Memphis...Soul brothers, what are you dying for?" (Komunyakaa 13). The song in the poem is representative of the death that loomed over every soldier's head during the war and the fear that every soldier felt. The lyrics also show the tension caused by the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s death as well as the confusion felt by most as to the real reason the war was being fought.
Another poem by Komunyakaa, "The One-Legged Stool," presents slightly different themes involving racial tension present in the United States during the time of the war. In this piece, an African-American prisoner of war is kept in a room on a one-legged stool in a state of delerium and hallucination under the watch of an enemy Vietnamese soldier. The Vietnamese soldier tries to play off of the racial tension between blacks and whites by telling the POW that his white comrades have been putting him down, but the narrator responds, "Those white prisoners didn't say what you say they said...They ain't putting me down, calling me names like you say. Lies...Doctor King, he ain't dead like you say" (Komunyakaa 40). This passage establishes the issue that race was an issue between American soldiers during the Vietnam War, and it repeats the concept of Dr. King's enormous significance to African-American morale and the Civil Rights Movement. Later in the piece, the narrator speaks to the guard, "You've pitted me against them. Against those white troops over there behind those trees" (Komunyakaa 41). It is unclear whether this is an event that actually took place in the plot of this story or something the narrator has imagined because of his delirious state of mind, but it is evident that regardless of the circumstances, racism is a concept that is definitely on the mind of the POW. The final portion of "The One-Legged Stool" consists of the narrator comparing the Vietnamese guard to the white Americans from his home that eye him distastefully because they think he doesn't belong in a uniform.
One of Komunyakaa's last poems in Dien Cai Dau, "Short-timer's Calendar," contains the most vivid illustration of the life of an American soldier in Vietnam. It begins, "...minutes & seconds moved me beyond who I was before I knew I could snap, seeing each hour worked down to salt under a white grinding stone" (Komunyakaa 43). The author uses this passage to depicts how slowly time passed for a soldier, how much waiting and patience the war involved, and how on-edge a soldier could become due to the seemingly non-existent passage of time. Although a soldier in war time finds himself in the heat of battle at times, he also spends hours and days waiting, watching, and marching which take a toll on his mental health. The narrator then talks of "recounting tick marks on the back of a lover's photograph-where now meets then" (Komunyakaa 43). This quote brings up the frequently utilized theme of the "girl back home" addition to the concept that a soldier could never be the person he used to be when he was home. War changes a man so much so that the man he is "now" is drastically different from the person he was "then." The content of the poem shifts to the seemingly routine death of more young men at the end of each day and emphasizes the desensitization to death most soldiers experienced during the war. The narrator talks of these young "short-timers" as if they are a burden and a liability to the platoon that a man needed to be cautios of.