Task 1 (Children in the darkness)
Background information of Bechtold and the poem
This poem was written in the year 2009, during Christmas, when Henry M Bechtold was in his hotel room during his stay at Saigon. He often goes there because “his soul lives in Vietnam”.
The poet was trying to write a poem about girls who work in the park and how badly men treat them. He was angry but unable to write anything that did not sound trite or weak. Bechtold looked at the TV and the news was on.
He did not know what the news reader was saying but in the background was a photo of a small boy with a helmet and an automatic rifle. This poem flowed out. The words just “came to him and he typed as fast as he could to get it all down”.
In this poem, the poet talk about children that were involved in the war and that they were being robbed of their childhood and forced to be engaged with war. In the past twenty years, there has been estimated that there are over millions of children that has been used in the war or dragged into with their parents.
The children were usually used as nurses, spies. They were in charge of guarding
resources, general camps, drum boys, and worst of all, infantry soldiers who were put at the front line to test out for enemy mines.
2 million children have died, 5 million disabled, 12 million homeless, 1 million were made orphans and 10 million were shell-shocked.
The children were treated as lower classes of soldiers or recruits in the war as in the context to the poem, Children in the Darkness. They are given high risks task as they are of low value.
Source: http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/2010warpoetry.html
http://www.scribd.com/doc/31962195/Children-in-the-Darkness
Background information of Bechtold and the poem
This poem was written in the year 2009, during Christmas, when Henry M Bechtold was in his hotel room during his stay at Saigon. He often goes there because “his soul lives in Vietnam”.
The poet was trying to write a poem about girls who work in the park and how badly men treat them. He was angry but unable to write anything that did not sound trite or weak. Bechtold looked at the TV and the news was on.
He did not know what the news reader was saying but in the background was a photo of a small boy with a helmet and an automatic rifle. This poem flowed out. The words just “came to him and he typed as fast as he could to get it all down”.
In this poem, the poet talk about children that were involved in the war and that they were being robbed of their childhood and forced to be engaged with war. In the past twenty years, there has been estimated that there are over millions of children that has been used in the war or dragged into with their parents.
The children were usually used as nurses, spies. They were in charge of guarding
resources, general camps, drum boys, and worst of all, infantry soldiers who were put at the front line to test out for enemy mines.
2 million children have died, 5 million disabled, 12 million homeless, 1 million were made orphans and 10 million were shell-shocked.
The children were treated as lower classes of soldiers or recruits in the war as in the context to the poem, Children in the Darkness. They are given high risks task as they are of low value.
Source: http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/2010warpoetry.html
http://www.scribd.com/doc/31962195/Children-in-the-Darkness
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