Children in the Darkness

There are children in the darkness
Who have not seen the light
There are children in the darkness
Who someone will teach to fight

Chalk and blackboards will not be
To this door there is no key
From this life they can not flee
And these children are not free

Could we simply light a candle
Could we give them half a chance
Could we teach them how to read
Could we teach them how to dance

Or will a war consume them
Their body and their soul
Will their life and blood be poured
Down some endless thirsty hole

Back into the darkness
From which there is no flight
Back into the darkness
Into which there shines no light

Henry M Bechtold

Task 1

He was in Vietnam in 1967 - 68 and again in 1969. He would go back often because he believed soul lives in Vietnam and he went back to visit it from time to time.

He was sitting in his hotel room in Saigon just before Christmas 2009 and he was trying to write a poem about the 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. He 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 me and he typed as fast as I could to get it all down.

References:
http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/2010warpoetry.html

Task 2

The first stanza is the perspective of an adult looking at a child. The children have been kept in the darkness, kept away from all the horrors and answers, not knowing and nonchalant to anything. This is written when he is feeling how unfairly treated the children are. Towards the end of stanza one , he displays a sign of hope for the children. "Who someone will teach them how to fight" meaning that they can stand for themselves. However this could also mean that instead of going to school, the children are now learning to fight, not education. This will be elaborated on the second stanza.

The second stanza is now in the point of view of a child. The first line states that learning is not everything, you have to defend yourselves, evident from "Chalk and blackboards will not be", chalk and blackboard are the essential toools for studying but now they are no longer needed. "To this door there is no key" reinstates the plight the children are in how they cannot escape from it. "From this life they can not flee And these children are not free" sows that children have no freedom, and cannot escape from the plight they are in.

Stanza three has a rhetorical device- "could we starting every line". This displays a sign of hope for the children, could they finally be broken away from the plight, could they be learning again ? This gives the reader a sense of hope for the children.

The stanza four is a constrats to the stanza three. It depicts the horrors the children might be facing. Overexxageration is used, "will a war consume them
Their body and their soul" and "Will their life and blood be poured
Down some endless thirsty hole" this to emphasise the effect.

The last stanza, stanza five is a conclusive one to the whole poem. The children might either have hope, or have little hope.