Another poem...

[MrBranchAPLit]

Did you know that every year the Library of Congress elects a poet laureate in the United States? This poet laureate is then given the job of being an ambassador of sorts for poetry, going around the country and spreading the word to the masses.

This comes from a great website www.poets.org

"Simic was appointed the fifteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry in 2007. About the appointment, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said, 'The range of Charles Simic's imagination is evident in his stunning and unusual imagery. He handles language with the skill of a master craftsman, yet his poems are easily accessible, often meditative and surprising. He has given us a rich body of highly organized poetry with shades of darkness and flashes of ironic humor.'

'I am especially touched and honored to be selected because I am an immigrant boy who didn't speak English until I was 15,' responded Simic after being named Poet Laureate.

"About his work, a reviewer for the Harvard Review said, 'There are few poets writing in America today who share his lavish appetite for the bizarre, his inexhaustible repertoire of indelible characters and gestures ... Simic is perhaps our most disquieting muse.'"

Here is a powerful, intense poem. I suggest just reading it and writing whatever first comes to mind. A reader-response driven post this week.

Driving Home
by Charles Simic

Minister of our coming doom, preaching
On the car radio, how right
Your Hell and damnation sound to me
As I travel these small, bleak roads
Thinking of the mailman?s son
The Army sent back in a sealed coffin.

His house is around the next turn.
A forlorn mutt sits in the yard
Waiting for someone to come home.
I can see the TV is on in the living room,
Canned laughter in the empty house
Like the sound of beer cans tied to a hearse.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ August 21, 2007 09:31 PM: Message edited by: Mr Branch ]</font>

[mariecburt]

This poem is obviously very deep, and I think there are a lot of subliminal messages the poet is using. The first thing I noticed was how he talked about religion, and then about war. This poem could have been written a long time ago but I still feel identified with it because of the war in Iraq. The first thing that came to my mind was George Bush and how as a conservative he is claimed to be religious but I cannot understand how someone that believes in religion believes in killing innocent people in a war. He is also protesting about war and about how many deaths there are in a war, that killed the postmans son. I may have made that whole thing up, maybe its because I think about politics so much but I think he is using this poem as a protest to war in general.

[felavaz]

Wow.
This poem is using a very effective device to let readers know his position regarding war. He uses a specific experience, that of a postman's son, to portray the brutalities that war can bring upon families. Besides, relating a simple experience like this one brings more of a shock over the reader than just saying a statistic--x number of people died in a war. This adds the sensitive, personal side to it that makes people realize what it means for merely one person to die.

[rcln]

The narrator of the poem feels resentment against the cruelty and outcomes of war. He mentions how they can destroy the lives of many by addressing an example of a single. It is both sorrowful and tragic for those who receive the news of the death of a relative and for those who still have no idea and keep waiting with hope. The voice coming out from the TV belongs to the culprit(s) who is responsible for bringing about the war, their decision condemning thousands and millions of lives to annihilation. Simic?s intentions conveyed through this poem may be interpreted as a protest against war.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ August 26, 2007 09:58 PM: Message edited by: brucelin ]</font>

[alexiacalo]

The poem really makes the reader think about how war affects individual lives. By using the postman's son the poem makes the war more personal since you think about how it affects that single family. This one example shows the tragic outcomes of war and the emptiness that the loss of a single life may bring. It is obviously against war and portrays the effects war may have. It is short but it is quite shocking and the author is effective in proving his point.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ August 26, 2007 10:08 PM: Message edited by: alexiacalo ]</font>

[lucas89a]

Simic is a critic to war and the media in this poem. He hears on the radio how somebody (the government perhaps) preaches a damned future. I couldn't help but notice that the fallen soldier was a mailman's son. A person from the middle/working class. It is a critisism to the way the war system works. "Why do you always send the poor?" goes the lyrics to a song of which this poem reminds me of.

[cjkb90]

The poem is clearly about war, probably about the ongoing conflict in Iraq. In the first few verses it describes how close minded people can be (small,bleak roads) and how they can lead them to think that, somehow, the man who tells a nation that the war is justified (they have nuclear weapons, or this is a war on terror) can actually be right.

By the second stanza, the poem focuses on the emptiness that death brings to loved ones, and how this void can not be filled. It finishes off with an oxymoron, "the sound of beer cans tied to a hearse". Beer cans are tied to vehicles that transport newlyweds, but a hearse is where a dead man is transported, so it is mixing a cheerful event with a lugubrious one.

[juanmax]

The author of the poem intends to portray his view of a society during times of war. He does this by making the poem like a story, where feelings are a lot more personal. The author wants to say that propaganda is strongly rooted in the media(tv and radio in the poem) during times of war. People are easily convinced to support the war effort. The last sentence sums up Simic's opinions about the topic of war. He says that we all live hypnotized or stupified
by the clever media during war. "Like the sound of bear cans tied to a hearse". This means that instead of lamenting our patriots deaths, we idolize their brave convictions and feed the war machine.

[alberto_dacosta]

Driving Home
by Charles Simic

Minister of our coming doom, preaching
On the car radio, how right
Your Hell and damnation sound to me
As I travel these small, bleak roads
Thinking of the mailman?s son
The Army sent back in a sealed coffin.

His house is around the next turn.
A forlorn mutt sits in the yard
Waiting for someone to come home.
I can see the TV is on in the living room,
Canned laughter in the empty house
Like the sound of beer cans tied to a hearse.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The tone of Simic's poem is somber and dreary, and the images it evokes are particularly depressing; an empty house inhabitated by a dead man, with a television set eternally awaiting the return of its owner. The dark and desolate scenery created by the poem further reinforce the poem's resignated and morose tone. Like has been pointed out in previous posts, it is most likely that the mailman's son was slain while serving in Iraq. If that is the case, it is possible that the poet is criticizing the U.S. involvement in said conflict: the man remarks that [the minister's] Hell and damnation sound [right to me].

The activated television set, emitting canned laughter in the empty house, is perhaps symbolic of the irrecuperable void that the death of someone dear leaves in a family; the allusion to the cans tied to the funeral car evokes empty, clanging sounds, which are symbolic of the emptiness that the death of someone dear creates. The forlorn mutt is representative of the endless wait, perhaps, that other families must endure; unaware of or unable to grasp the reality of their relative's fate, they spend every day with hopeful, yet often futile, expectations.

Simic's authorship of this poem makes his position on war very clear. It is an enterprise that, regardless of victory or defeat, will eternally scar -- or even break -- entire families. The price of war is not necessarily of a financial or social nature; it proves to be an eternal burden to those acquainted with the casualties.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ August 28, 2007 01:22 PM: Message edited by: alberto_dacosta ]</font>

[montanaro.g]

Hmmmmm..... Quite interesting the poem is....

For me, this poem is an upfront critique on America. In this critique he shows how the American people, and by that I mean the American government, is dooming humankind by its "War on Terror." The preacher is the president, in this case George W. Bush, that is preaching on "fighting" against those that have a different view on life than the American view. The radio program are the speeches given by the president urging for support for such a "noble cause:" killing those that are different (in all the possible ways this word can be molded).
By putting the mail man's son in the poem, it shows that war is useless. The only thing that war yields is death and pain on the American people (not mentioning on the other half).The death of the son brings pain, but life continues, at least for the president who did not loose a son or daughter. This demonstrates that the poor are suffering from the war, because they are sent to fight for the American ideals, while the self-denominated "patriots" sit behind their desks reading about the war on CNN news.
In conclusion, Simic shows his disapproval regarding the war in this poem. His example of the son creates strong emotions in the reader (at least for me). The poor are the real patriots that risk their lives for the benefit of the rest. (This does not mean that only the poor are sent to Iraq).