Poems: D.C. Berry and AB Negative
What can these poems tell us about men’s experiences in war and masculinity?
Both peoems D. C. Berry and AB Negative (The Surgeon’s Poem) deal with a person dying in war. On is a woman in Iraq who is flying to hosptial in Germany, but dies on her way and the other one is about a man in Vietnam getting shot in his lung. The narrators of both poems are soldiers and seem to be extremely moved by the brutality and cruelty of the each war.
In D. C. Berry the narrator is trying to express how the war changed his view of the world. It says: „The sun goes down in a different way, when you are lungshot.“ This is certainly true and it shows how this man has learned to appreciate the little things in life like a sunset, which happens every day.
In AB Negative the narrator describes the death of a female soldiers which is especially moving, because we do not hear very frequently about killed female soldiers. This event must have had a huge impact on the narrator. The scene is described with a lot of blood, so all the blood in the war has probably effected the narrator.
Both narrators seem to regret their decision to go to war, because they have seen so much cruelty and seeing people die everyday is a terrible thing. Even though it is considered very masculin to go to war, it does not seem like the two narrators care a lot about it anymore. Also, because in AB Negative it is a female soldier who is killed, it seems like they do not think that beeing a soldier proves your masculinty, but that most people probably should not go to war, because as said in the movie „they make you become an animal.“
3 comments:
I agree with your views. These two poems shows what war is really like, no what it is hyped up to be. These poems show how the blood and gore is a part of war, and the pain associated with it.
You have some good points. One question I have is, if, as these poems suggest, most soldiers coming back from a war are deeply effected in some way, why do we not hear their voices more often? Is it simply because most of them have trouble speaking, as we saw in the Vietnam video? If so, what does this tell us about hyper-masculinity and the ability to express emotions? Are organizations designed to showcase soldiers' rights accurately representing their voices?
Fabian, War is certainly one of the greatest "man tests" that we as a culture have designed. The poems you chose certainly focus on another side of war, the side that usually gets little attention as Lucien points out. Some of the reasons soldiers are reluctant to speak out about their experience certainly has to do with hyper-masculinity.
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