Poems

I found a biography on Bruce Weigl!

I choose to read the poems, “Song of Napalm,” and also, “The Colonel,” because by the titles, they sounded like they could be interesting to me. These poems were interesting, in a disgusting and horrifying way. Both of the poems include the idea of death, where the characters in the poem can do nothing about it. In the poem by Bruce Weigl, “Song of Napalm,” he says, “And the girl runs only as far/ As the napalm allows/ Until her burning tendons and crackling/ Muscles draw her up/ into that final position.” (Lines 36-40) This paints a horrifying picture in my mind. I imagine being the person in the poem and watching this girl running, engulfed in the sticky flame of napalm, and not being able to do anything helpful for her. She hits the ground still aflame, her body crackling and curling into her resting position, but we cannot go back to witness this. We can only relive her pain through this poem, and think of how lucky we were that it was not us.  In the poem, “The Colonel,” by Carolyn Forche, she writes, “The colonel returned with a sack used to / bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on/ the table. They were like dried peach halves.” (Lines 21-23) This creates a very real and very disgusting image in my mind. I can see these little halves curled and dried, just like a peach, falling out of the bag onto a table.  The look on the characters face must be horrified. What kind of person would keep a bag full of human ears? It must be a scare factor. The colonel could be a dictator, ruling a country with an iron fist, scaring off his enemies with his cut off ears. I know I wouldn’t want to mess with someone who had a bag full of ears, and has probably killed the people who they belong to. Both of these poems painted a very descriptive and ugly image in my mind, which made me react strongly. I focused in on the lines that I thought painted the picture the best.

Image found: http://www.richsincrediblepyro.com/effects.html

Weigl, Bruce. “Song of Napalm.” Poetry Foundation. 1999.  7 February, 2011. Web. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/print.html?id=171470/>.

Forche, Carolyn. “The Colonel.” American Poems. 1978. 7 February, 2011. Web. <http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/Carolyn-Forche/3469/>.