Vietnam Poetry Starter Clue SPECS and SLIMS Think

Vietnam Poetry Starter: Clue: SPECS and SLIMS Think back to any of the poetry you have studied at school. There are certain things that you usually look at when you analyse a poem. Poetry Analysis Brainstorm everything you can think of that you look for when you analyse a poem Clue:

Learning Objective To learn the SPECS and SLIMS way of analysing a poem To revise the poetry techniques POPS MARS To understand Bruce Dawe’s poem Homecoming Success Criteria Annotated Homecoming Have written SPECS and SLIMS notes on Homecoming Plenary One thing you have learned about the poem

Poetry Analysis Technique S P E C S S L I M S Structure Language Imagery Subject Movement Purpose Sound Emotion/Mood/Tone Craftsmanship Summary Copy this diagram into your books.

Homecoming By Bruce Dawe 1. All day, day after day, they’re bringing them home, 2. they’re picking them up, those they can find, and bringing them home, 3. they’re bringing them in, piled on the hulls of Grants, in trucks in convoys, 4. they’re zipping them up in green plastic bags, 5. they’re tagging them now in Saigon in the mortuary coolness 6. they’re giving them names, they’re rolling them out of 7. the deep freeze lockers – on the tarmac at Tan Son Nhut 8. the noble jets are whining like hounds, 9. they are bringing them home 10. -- curly- heads, kinky-hairs, crew-cuts, balding non-coms 11. -- they’re high , now, high and higher, over the land the steaming chow mein 12. their shadows are tracing the blue curve of the Pacific 13. with sorrowful quick fingers, heading south , heading east, 14. home, home – and the coasts swing upward, the old ridiculous curvatures 15. of earth, the knuckled hills, the mangrove – swamps, the desert emptiness. . . 16. in their sterile housing they tilt towards these like skiers 17. --taxiing in, on the long runways, the howl of their homecoming rises 18. surrounding them like their last moments (the mash, the splendour) 19. then fading at length as they move 20. on to small towns where dogs in the frozen sunset 21. raise muzzles in mute salute, 22. and on to cities in whose wide web of suburbs 23. telegrams tremble like leaves from a wintering tree 24. and the spider grief swings in his bitter geometry 25. --they’re bringing them home, now, too late too early.

1. All day, day after day, they’re bringing them home, 2. they’re picking them up, those they can find, and bringing them home, 3. they’re bringing them in, piled on the hulls of Grants, in trucks in convoys, 4. they’re zipping them up in green plastic bags, 5. they’re tagging them now in Saigon in the mortuary coolness

6. they’re giving them names, they’re rolling them out of 7. the deep freeze lockers – on the tarmac at Tan Son Nhut 8. the noble jets are whining like hounds, 9. they are bringing them home 10. -- curly- heads, kinky-hairs, crew-cuts, balding non-coms 11. -- they’re high , now, high and higher, over the land the steaming chow mein

12. their shadows are tracing the blue curve of the Pacific 13. with sorrowful quick fingers, heading south , heading east, 14. home, home – and the coasts swing upward, the old ridiculous curvatures 15. of earth, the knuckled hills, the mangrove – swamps, the desert emptiness. . .

16. in their sterile housing they tilt towards these like skiers 17. --taxiing in, on the long runways, the howl of their homecoming rises 18. surrounding the, like their last moments (the mash, the splendour) 19. then fading at length as they move 20. on to small towns where dogs in the frozen sunset

21. raise muzzles in mute salute, 22. and on to cities in whose wide web of suburbs 23. telegrams tremble like leaves from a wintering tree 24. and the spider grief swings in his bitter geometry 25. --they’re bringing them home, now, too late too early.

Drifters by Bruce Dawe Describing dead men returning home Subject from the Vietnam War Purpose Emotion Craftsmansh ip: Structure Language Imagery Movement Sound war is not beneficial. War is futile. Destructive nature of war. War is not worth the numerous impersonal deaths. Exposes the destructive and dehumanising aspects of war. War effects people all over the world. mechanical, accusatory, sombre,

Drifters Subject Purpose Emotion Craftsmansh ip: Structure Language Imagery Movement Sound Free Verse (most common form of the 20 th Cent. ) Much of Dawe’s work is done in this style. Features: - irregular line lengths/ no rhyme or regular rhythm -relies on the cadences (natural rhythms) of speech for its sense of rhythm Repeated use of the pronoun “they’re”, hints at the impersonal relationship between the bodies and their handlers. Dawe establishes the inhuman, machine-like processing of human bodies, a ghastly reality common to all conflicts that use innocent soldiers as cannon fodder. Powerful language creates a description of the mechanical savagary of war. Similes, alliteration, personification, metaphors Punctuation: dashes -, brackets (), and ellipses. . . , force the reader to pause and think about the horrifying truth of what they’re reading Repetition of the suffix “-ing” in “bringing”, “zipping”, “picking”, “tagging”, and “giving”, describing the actions of the body processors, establishes irony. These verbs imply life and vitality, in stark contrast to the limp, lifeless, cold body that they handle each day. Repetition is used effectively to highlight the shocking brutality that has manifested in all wars throughout history

Homecoming Questions to aid analysis 1. In what sense is the title ironic? 2. Who are ‘they’? Why are ‘they’ not named? Choose three 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. images evoked by Dawe. What is their significance and impact? Find three examples of repetition and comment on their use and effectiveness. What is the purpose of Dawe’s lists, such as ‘curly-heads, kinky-hairs, crew-cuts, balding non-coms’? What does the use of ‘ing’ words throughout the poem achieve? Find examples of Dawe’s use of simile/ personification, e. g. telegrams tremble like leaves from a wintering tree’. What does this add to the poem? What do the final words ‘…too late, too early’ mean? Does this work as an effective anti-war poem?

Plenary • Using POPS MARS what is one example of one technique from POPS MARS in the poem? • How is it effective in conveying the author’s message?