Responding to a Poem

There were two poems that hit me the hardest. The first one is "Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting" by Kevin Powers. This letter to me is almost heartbreaking because this poem shows how much of the war consumes a soldiers life. The soldiers almost forget that they have a life back home. The same things are going on day in and day out that they forget that there may be other events in life going on back home with their families, children, or friends. In this poem he tells what I believe to be his significant other "that war is just us making little pieces of metal passing through each other." (Powers lines 10-12) He is so lost I thought that all he has to say to her is what a comrade in arms has told him. The second poem that I chose is "Compendium of Lost Objects" by Nicole Cooley. In this poem everyone lost almost everything that was near and dear to them. They no longer have the objects to hold that had the best memories behind them. They no longer have the physical things but only the memories. All their personal belongings were thrown in disarray and can’t even think of where to start to put them all back together. "Or the pink shuttered house on the streetcar line where you were married" (Cooley lines 9&10), all of this disappeared. The sacred piece of land where you gave you vows to the one person you love just ripped to pieces never to be seen again. Both of these poems are very sad and bring the devastation back. Soldiers don’t like to think they have forgotten how to live their lives back home and the families from the natural disaster don’t want to think of all the things that were taken from them. Both have to remember how to move forward in their lives and be thankful for what they do have.

http://www.zimbio.com/Saddam+Hussein/articles/Wu1_pGYl1dY/Beautiful+Collection+Iraq+war+Saddam+Hussein
Here is a site on differnt stories from people and stories of triumph.
http://www.nola.com/katrina/