analysis of the poems
The Midnight Movie
In the poem “The Midnight Movie” Mike Subritzky writes about how a young soldier ‘Jimmy’ has flashbacks of the Vietnam War over and over again. He describes this using visual imagery, stating that night after night, at midnight, the young man relives the moment of shooting a Vietnamese woman through the back. You feel the anxiety and suspense as he is walking through the jungle, the fear at the moment of ambush and then horror at the realisation that he shot an innocent woman.
This poem draws the reader in, using effects such as repetition to get the reader to really feel the horror and distress of Jimmy. For example, in the second and last stanzas, repeating “he always yells out he’s sorry, so sorry for all of the pain, but every night around midnight; he kills her all over again”. This makes the reader feel very sorry for the young soldier, as they feel his sadness and distress at what he had done. It makes the reader feel quite disturbed, and impresses on you that just as you are reading it again, he is experiencing it again and again, repeating and reliving the events he is unable to forget.
The rhyme and rhythm of the poem also contributes to the feeling of the rhythm of a march and the repetition of his nightly experiences.
The verb ‘trembling’ in the eighth stanza describes how Jimmy feels after the shooting. He has been in fear of his life, is still scared, but is expected to have a smoke and then move on with the clean-up.
The phrase “the jungle seems silent and empty” gives the reader a sense of despair and dread. The description makes the reader feel like the forest has had every living thing stripped from it, killed or in hiding. These two words “silent and empty” also make it seem as if the forest is a living graveyard. This phrase is another very good example of visual imagery.
This poem uses a number of poetic techniques, one of the most powerful being visual imagery that create distressing images and emotions. They help give the reader insight into what Jimmy felt and what he continued to experience even after the war ended.
In the poem “The Midnight Movie” Mike Subritzky writes about how a young soldier ‘Jimmy’ has flashbacks of the Vietnam War over and over again. He describes this using visual imagery, stating that night after night, at midnight, the young man relives the moment of shooting a Vietnamese woman through the back. You feel the anxiety and suspense as he is walking through the jungle, the fear at the moment of ambush and then horror at the realisation that he shot an innocent woman.
This poem draws the reader in, using effects such as repetition to get the reader to really feel the horror and distress of Jimmy. For example, in the second and last stanzas, repeating “he always yells out he’s sorry, so sorry for all of the pain, but every night around midnight; he kills her all over again”. This makes the reader feel very sorry for the young soldier, as they feel his sadness and distress at what he had done. It makes the reader feel quite disturbed, and impresses on you that just as you are reading it again, he is experiencing it again and again, repeating and reliving the events he is unable to forget.
The rhyme and rhythm of the poem also contributes to the feeling of the rhythm of a march and the repetition of his nightly experiences.
The verb ‘trembling’ in the eighth stanza describes how Jimmy feels after the shooting. He has been in fear of his life, is still scared, but is expected to have a smoke and then move on with the clean-up.
The phrase “the jungle seems silent and empty” gives the reader a sense of despair and dread. The description makes the reader feel like the forest has had every living thing stripped from it, killed or in hiding. These two words “silent and empty” also make it seem as if the forest is a living graveyard. This phrase is another very good example of visual imagery.
This poem uses a number of poetic techniques, one of the most powerful being visual imagery that create distressing images and emotions. They help give the reader insight into what Jimmy felt and what he continued to experience even after the war ended.
The School
In his poem The School, Curt Bennett conveys a sense of confusion and sorrow, with an initial feeling of awkwardness giving way to pity, and then to horror as the soldiers realise that they have killed children just like this. The effect of this on the reader is one of sadness; it makes the reader feel sorry for the Vietnamese children and teachers, but also for the Americans.
Bennett uses a number of techniques to convey these emotions. He uses comparison in the fifth and sixth stanzas when he describes the broken down, patched schoolhouse building, and the areas of bare dirt without any of the play equipment that American children would have. The description of “No teeter-totters, no monkey bars, see-saws or jungle gyms, swings, or rings, or merry-go-rounds” highlights the differences between the American and the Vietnamese schools in a very vivid way. In stanza thirteen he directly compares the “parody” of children in Vietnam, who have nothing and no future, to those in the States.
Throughout this poem Bennett uses an irregular metre, which reflects the tension and chaos of war, that it is not predictable in any way. “Through the small Ville of An-Tan they drove the narrow, crooked streets
bounding the battered, small shell houses. Green algae ditches held swarming water, bars, massage, and dancing, red signs proclaiming business as usual”. This irregular metre makes the reader feel uncomfortable, as if something is not quite right.
The phrase ‘growing quiet’ in the seventh stanza describes the children as feeling frightened, intimidated and confused by the Americans walking into their school.
Bennett also makes use of visual imagery throughout the poem. For example in stanza eight he says, “slinging their younger, thumb-sucking brother across small, bony child hips”. This sentence creates a picture of a young skinny child at a run-down school, protecting their younger siblings when they can. This makes the reader feel sorrow at the fact that these young children are made to act more grown up than they should, they cannot just play and learn, they have to protect and survive.
In the last stanza when Bennett writes, “ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posy, ashes… ashes… all fall down” he uses the rhythm of a well known childhood nursery rhyme to create a sense of sadness and futility. This is because it creates a picture inside the reader’s head of the Americans dropping napalm, and bombing schools in Vietnam, then comparing that image of the fleeing children to the ones singing and playing to the same rhyme in the safety of America. It also brings to mind the original meaning behind the nursery rhyme.
In his poem The School, Curt Bennett conveys a sense of confusion and sorrow, with an initial feeling of awkwardness giving way to pity, and then to horror as the soldiers realise that they have killed children just like this. The effect of this on the reader is one of sadness; it makes the reader feel sorry for the Vietnamese children and teachers, but also for the Americans.
Bennett uses a number of techniques to convey these emotions. He uses comparison in the fifth and sixth stanzas when he describes the broken down, patched schoolhouse building, and the areas of bare dirt without any of the play equipment that American children would have. The description of “No teeter-totters, no monkey bars, see-saws or jungle gyms, swings, or rings, or merry-go-rounds” highlights the differences between the American and the Vietnamese schools in a very vivid way. In stanza thirteen he directly compares the “parody” of children in Vietnam, who have nothing and no future, to those in the States.
Throughout this poem Bennett uses an irregular metre, which reflects the tension and chaos of war, that it is not predictable in any way. “Through the small Ville of An-Tan they drove the narrow, crooked streets
bounding the battered, small shell houses. Green algae ditches held swarming water, bars, massage, and dancing, red signs proclaiming business as usual”. This irregular metre makes the reader feel uncomfortable, as if something is not quite right.
The phrase ‘growing quiet’ in the seventh stanza describes the children as feeling frightened, intimidated and confused by the Americans walking into their school.
Bennett also makes use of visual imagery throughout the poem. For example in stanza eight he says, “slinging their younger, thumb-sucking brother across small, bony child hips”. This sentence creates a picture of a young skinny child at a run-down school, protecting their younger siblings when they can. This makes the reader feel sorrow at the fact that these young children are made to act more grown up than they should, they cannot just play and learn, they have to protect and survive.
In the last stanza when Bennett writes, “ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posy, ashes… ashes… all fall down” he uses the rhythm of a well known childhood nursery rhyme to create a sense of sadness and futility. This is because it creates a picture inside the reader’s head of the Americans dropping napalm, and bombing schools in Vietnam, then comparing that image of the fleeing children to the ones singing and playing to the same rhyme in the safety of America. It also brings to mind the original meaning behind the nursery rhyme.