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Pull sword swiftly out

Forces approach, sun blinding

Fight strongly young man

I chose the poem, "Final Battle," which I wrote myself, because I have been writing a series of haikus and found that this one portrays a story particularly well. The simplicity of form adds to the blindly heroic theme and is uninterrupted by unnecessary wording.

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Toting his dying gown

Warrior pointed sword with care

He saw his last flower
I chose the poem, "Warrior," which I wrote myself, because it portrays a warrior outside of battle and simply paints a picture of their last moment. The simplistic poem form gives the moment a tranquil feeling, which contrasts many other poems of a similar theme.

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对雪

战哭多新鬼
愁吟独老翁
乱云低薄暮
急雪舞回风
瓢弃尊无绿
炉存火似红
数州消息断
愁坐正书空

Battle-slaughter musters fresh legions of weeping ghosts;

Old, alone, fretful, I mutter poems, hum tunes.

A chaos of clouds, thrusting down, swallows dusk's last glints;

Dense unceasing snow is danced about and about by the wind.

Draining a wine cask of its green dregs, I cast aside the ladle;

The fire's gone out, yet a faint red warmth clings to the stove.

Here, as everywhere, war has stemmed the flow of news;

Perennial news in books? How vain and prattling they seem now!

I chose the poem, "Facing Snow" by Du Fu, as my cultural poem because it can be related to my family from China. The men lost during the battle to protect Chang'an are much like the men in my family who fought during World War II to protect China from outside forces. The word choices also portray how life was like back when this poem was created.

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That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgment-day

And sat upright. While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worms drew back into the mounds,

The glebe cow drooled. Till God called, “No;
It’s gunnery practice out at sea
Just as before you went below;
The world is as it used to be:

“All nations striving strong to make
Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
They do no more for Christés sake
Than you who are helpless in such matters.

“That this is not the judgment-hour
For some of them’s a blessed thing,
For if it were they’d have to scour
Hell’s floor for so much threatening....

“Ha, ha. It will be warmer when
I blow the trumpet (if indeed
I ever do; for you are men,
And rest eternal sorely need).”

So down we lay again. “I wonder,
Will the world ever saner be,”
Said one, “than when He sent us under
In our indifferent century!”

And many a skeleton shook his head.
“Instead of preaching forty year,”
My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,
“I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.”

Again the guns disturbed the hour,
Roaring their readiness to avenge,
As far inland as Stourton Tower,
And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.

I chose the poem, "Channel Firing" by Thomas Hardy, for one of my free choice poems because of the excellent use of rhyme scheme and imagery. It is also interesting how the matter of sanity is discussed in the context of the war and current century, when similar topics are still discussed today.

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Bent double, like of old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind:
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in sonic smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-
My friend, you would not talk with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

I chose this poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owens, primarily because of the imagery and tone of the piece. The imagery is used to portray chaos and confusion that comes with being in a war zone.

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I thought I was ready for us to meet, Hadji,
as my convoy rumbled through your city.
I'd shot Expert, could keyhole
shots in the necks of man-shaped targets
at five-hundred yards—you'd be much closer.

I thought I knew how you'd go down, Hadji.
Targets don't bleed, or scream, or cling so
godd*mn hard to life. 5.56's jump
on impact, go in the leg, out the neck
and covering the holes doesn't keep you alive.

I thought I'd be all right, Hadji—
went home on my feet, though I can't
remember how to sleep
a night through. Yesterday a girl
hit my cart at the grocery store.
I hadn't thought of you in months, didn't then,
just stood staring at cheeses
like they mattered,
wanting so much
to unclench my fists and fly the f**k apart.

I chose the poem, "Hadji" by Bruce Lack, as my Michigan poem because it shows the mental and emotional affect of war on the soldiers by using unorthodox diction. The curses words, which I feel were rightfully used, show the frustration and emotion being felt by the speaker.

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Lack, Bruce. “Hadji.” Winning Writers. Winning Writers. n.d. Web. 24 March 2014.

Owen, Wilfred. “Dulce et Decorum Est.” About Poetry. About. n.d. Web. 24 March 2014.

Hardy, Thomas. “Channel Firing.” About Poetry. About. n.d. Web. 24 March 2014.

Fu, Du. “Facing Snow.” Chinese Poetry. Mark Alexander. n.d. Web. 24 March 2014.

Mui, Jazmine. “Warrior.” 17 March 2014.

Mui, Jazmine. “Final Battle.” 17 March 2014.