I am not a fan of poetry and especially not poems that are short and to the point. To me, it makes it harder to find the author’s purpose of the poem in just a few lines. Essentially, because the author wants the reader to indicate the several meanings in a poem without adding so much detail. When reading the directions of the poem, then reading the poem title itself, I was able to grasp that the poem would be about the military or people of the military. Which would make sense, given that we are currently reading the novel Catch-22.
Upon reading and analyzing the poem, my inferences were correct. In just ten lines, the author described the stages of being in war through a speaker who experienced it or even assumes how war is. There was a lot of visual imagery used in the poem, obviously to get the reader to paint a picture of what is happening to convey the speaker’s attitude. For starters, the speaker seems as if they wish they were a General or Colonel, “guzzling and gulping in the best hotel” (5), assuming that the Colonels and Generals get the best treatment. As well as the speaker describing the training and treatment of younger soldiers, “And speed glum heroes up the line to death” (3). Both uses of imagery contradict themselves because it seems as though older soldiers train younger soldiers to their death. Indicating that the sole purpose of a General in war is to relax and watch younger soldiers complete every task in battle. The speaker of this poem has a negative or sarcastic attitude towards the epithets of war. Conveying that the trials and tribulations that young soldiers go through in war do not compare to Generals or Colonels. In the two ending lines of the poem is where the bigger picture is found, “when the war is done and youth stone dead” (9), he experienced war and experienced younger soldiers dying; “I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed.” (10), older soldiers then get to die in the comforts of their home. The overall message is to criticize the mistreatment of younger soldiers in war. The sarcasm of the speaker is to convey the irony in the soldiers who sacrifice themselves to become manipulated by older soldiers in war.
