Homecoming - Bruce DaweAll day, day after day, they’re bringing them home,
they’re picking them up, those they can find, and bringing them home, they’re bringing them in, piled on the hulls of Grants, in trucks, in convoys, they’re zipping them up in green plastic bags, they’re tagging them now in Saigon, in the mortuary coolness they’re giving them names, they’re rolling them out of the deep-freeze lockers – on the tarmac at Tan Son Nhut the noble jets are whining like hounds, they are bringing them home – curly-heads, kinky hairs, crew-cuts, balding non-coms – they’re high, now high and higher, over the land, the steaming chow mein, their shadows are tracing the blue curve of the Pacific with sorrowful quick fingers, heading south, heading east, home, home, home – and the coasts swing upward, the old ridiculous curvatures of earth, the knuckled hill, the mangrove-swamps, the desert emptiness… in their sterile housing they tilt towards these like skiers – taxiing in, on the long runways, the howl of their homecoming rises surrounding them like their last moments (the mash, the splendour) then fading at length as they move on to small towns where dogs in the frozen sunset raise muzzles in mute salute, and on to cities in whose wide web of suburbs telegrams tremble like leaves from a wintering tree and the spider grief swings in his bitter geometry – they’re bring them home, now, too late, too early. |
‘Homecoming’by Bruce Dawe is a dramatic
poem, portraying the futility of war in a confronting tone. The poem was written as a tribute to the return of the bodies of young Australian soldiers who had fought and died in Vietnam, and the lack of identity and respect that was attributed to them. The anti-war poem was written in 1968 at a time when the general community was against war, because certain political movements caused by the realization of what was really happening in Vietnam and the senselessness of the Australians being there. The opening lines of the poem present the idea of the soldiers being meaninglessly picked from the battle field, and taken home as seen in the line ‘they’re picking them up, those they can find, and bringing them home’. The tone Dawe has chosen to take emphasizes the repetitiveness the ‘homecoming’ brings. Through the use of this tone, Dawe is able to portray the lives of the fallen soldiers as worthless, implying that war has stripped them of their identity. This is emphasized through the line ‘those they can find’ which enhances Dawes portrayal of the insignificance of the lives of the soldiers. Toward the end of the poem, the poet begins to describe the lack of respect and reverence the fallen soldiers had received on their ‘homecoming’. In 1960’s and 70’s, when the Australian soldiers were returning home from war, they received opposition and protest, rather than the warm welcome given to soldiers in wars previously. Because the community had become largely anti-Vietnam war the returned soldiers received little respect and acknowledgment from their society or those at home. This is reflected though ‘Homecoming’ in the line ‘raised muzzles in mute salute’. The poet has used this line to illustrate that the fallen soldiers are not treated to homecoming parades but are only acknowledged by dogs that ‘raise their muzzles in mute salute’. The uses of poetic techniques in the poem assist Dawe in portraying the sense of hopelessness that pervades the poem. Repetition in the first half of the poem especially emphasizes the ongoing nature of the task of bringing the body’s home. Classics network (2012, pg 1) proposes that the repeated ‘They’re’suggests an impersonal association between the bodies and their handlers. In addition to the repetition, the opening line ‘day after day’ implies that the task is continuous and unending while the lack of full stops in the poem may also be argued to subtly depict the never ending nature of the theme of the poem. (Write Work, 2012, pg 1) Through the use of personification in the second stage of the poem, Dawe is able to make an emotional connection to the reader though lines such as ‘their shadows are tracing the blue curve of the Pacific with sorrowful quick fingers, heading south, heading east’ . Moments like these throughout the poem evoke sorrow and distress in the reader by relating inanimate objects to emotions and feelings the reader may have towards the topic. Bruce Dawes ‘Homecoming’ gives a voice to the disrespected fallen soldiers in the Vietnamese war, and through this aims to convey his representation of the futility of war. The Classics Network,The Classics Network, online resources for literature, philosophy, and the humanities. [ONLINE], http://classicsnetwork.com/essays/homecoming-by-bruce-dawe/302. [Accessed 14 November 2012]. An Analysis of the poem 'Homecoming' by Bruce Dawe. 2012. An Analysis of the poem 'Homecoming' by Bruce Dawe. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.writework.com/essay/analysis-poem-homecoming-bruce-dawe. [Accessed 14 November 2012]. |