The Things They Carried

The two poems that gave me strong feelings

I am going to be frank; I don’t understand poetry in the least degree.  I am, however, going to give it my very best effort.  I really enjoyed the poem titled “Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting” by Kevin C. Powers; it is one that I can relate to.  I have never been a soldier as the author obviously has.  The first line was very moving to me, “I tell her I love her like not killing” (Powers line 1).  I understand that kind of love.  From this line I assume he is married.  It appears to me that he hates the fact that he has to kill to protect.  From what I gather the author wishes he could send a better letter to his loved one, “I tell her in a letter that will stink, when she opens it, of bolt oil and burned powder” (Powers lines 5-7).  The closing lines are awesomely powerful, yet simplistic words, “war is just making little pieces of metal pass through each other” (Powers lines10-12).  I can’t even imagine having to be in that situation.  I am grateful to those who fight and who have fought to keep this country safe.

            The other poem I am passionate about, but for some odd reasons.  I don’t follow the storyline at all, it confuses me, and I don’t like it.  I do like a challenge; for that reason I am going to write about “Compendium of Lost Objects” by Nicole Cooley.  I had to look up the definitions to a couple of words so right off the bat I am not liking it much.  To me this poem just seems to be a collection of random thoughts.  The way that it moves around if confusing to me, “not the cabinet of curiosities built with secret drawers to reveal and conceal its contents, but the batture, the rope swing, the rusted barge sunk at the water’s edge”(Cooley lines 4-6).  I just have a hard time following where the poem is taking me.  I guess I just don’t get the point of this poem, and that is why is has affected my so deeply.  I don’t like things that I can’t figure out; I am an extremely logical person and I just can’t find the logic in this poem.

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Few Truer Words

            I have many of the very same beliefs that Hamill expresses in the essay.  I agree whole heartedly that people become what they see in their upbringing.  I know that I am an exception to the rule so to speak; I took the bad things I saw my dad do when I was young and I used that to fuel my fire in becoming a better man.  I have seen exactly what he is talking about I had a friend who was beaten as a child by his step-father, once he had children of his own he abused them as well as his wife.  He makes the subtle hint that there is a certain amount of corruption coming to us through our televisions; I could not agree more.  My wife and I do not allow our kids to watch mainstream TV for that very reason.  My kids get to watch two movies per day, and the movies that they watch are mostly Disney. I think that is more important that my kids go outside and play or play a sport rather than a video game.  He went on a little tangent in reference to homophobia; I cannot say that I condone the lifestyle of homosexuality, but I do believe that people have free will and if someone chooses to be gay it is not my place to tell them to be different than that.  I do not think people should be feared or persecuted for a belief or a lifestyle choice, even if it is one that I disagree with.  I have never been much of a writer and he obviously was.  I think that writing my thoughts could be an avenue that I might explore.  “Writing is a form of human communication expressing ideas regarding the human condition.”  I think that I have neglected this form of communication for too long, time to stretch my limits.

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/733