Henry M Bechtold was in Vietnam in 1967 - 68 and again in 1969. He goes back often because his soul lives in Vietnam and hence visits 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. Henry 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 Henry and he typed as fast as he could to get it all down.
Analysis of Poem
1. Point of View:
An outsider.
Elaboration and Evidence:
The speaker is actually familiar with Vietnam, since he feels his soul lives there. That is why he feels so much pain for the children who are suffering in Vietnam. He feels that the children there are not doing things children their age normally do, as they are kids "Who have not seen the light".
2. Situation and Setting:
Elaboration and Evidence:
The situation now is that the children are not given a choice to do what they want, for example pursure an education as "Chalk and blackboards will not be" And that "From this life they can not flee/And these children are not free". All this sentences show that the children are trapped from the beginning, they are not free to choose their paths and the only one available for them is to train and fight and prepare to go to war in case the need arises.
3. Language and Diction:
Elaboration and Evidence:
The poet uses simple words, but they are written such that it brings out a stronger message. The 3rd stanza asks rhetorical questions, as if drilling into the readers that although we want to try and do all those things for the children, we cannot, as they are already trapped and their fates sealed ever since they were born.
The next stanza shows that a war, one that they have been training since young for, might consume them, their "body and soul". This brings forward that a war would totally destroy them, even though it might not harm them physically, it might affect their mental well-beings and their entire bright life which they would have had if they were not subject to such a fate would be "Down some endless thirsty hole".
"Darkness" is then repeated in the last stanza, seemingly depicting that there is no way out of it, that they will be trapped in there forever. It is a darkness "Into which there shines no light", n help can get to the children who are possibly crying for help inside the darkness. This use of diction again emphasises the helplessness and pitiful plight in which the children have been thrown into.
4. Personal Response:
The poem truly brings out the sufferings of the many children who are forced to lead such a lifestyle since young, forced to learn how to fight so as to prepare them for any possible attacks on the country in the future. The children were never given a choice and since they are young, they might think this is the correct way for a children to live, and hence when they grow up, they
grow up thinking that parents should ask of this of their children. This would be passed on generations down and it is all to blame for the initial people who started it all.
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