The very subject matter of war is not easy to digest, especially when you experience the gruesome, honest and heartbreaking tales from the perspectives of various eyes throughout Tony Barnstone’s Tongue of War. Throughout his collection, readers experience a raw honesty that is nothing like they have encountered before and that makes the discussion that more interesting as we course the emotions and thoughts Barnstone created within his audience page after page. However, the experience of a poem is not truly complete without an analysis of what makes each stanza, each line, each page so successful, so enticing; better yet what makes a single poem stick out of a whole collection to one reader.
When I began reading Tony Barnstone’s “Holocausts …show more content…
In this article of Southwest Review, Fein thoroughly discusses and dissects what makes a modern work of war poetry and that characteristics that make it so appealing. After reading his article it was quite clear that Barnstone’s collection of work in “Tongue of War” exemplifies this concept of war poetry, but “Holocausts of Water and Fire” is proven to have the very characteristic that has been found in other works of this genre so to speak. Fein says in his article about modern war poetry “the immense and pervasive catastrophe of modern war, its depersonalization (the way men are absorbed by their machines, the fact that often they do not even see the opponents they kill) […] there was no escape from a world that was closing in- made for the feeling that there was no way to protect oneself from the historic international violence”. These words speak to the worries, yet justification that was ever so present in the poem as Truman expressed his fears that the reckoning of the human race will come as a result of the destruction that has plagued the earth, yet he notes that such a monstrous device will communicate the language he needs to his enemies and will be of use in such matters of chaos, no matter the consequences. Fein’s article confirms that the collection of Barnstone’s work is the prime example of modern war poetry as it is “fascinated by the paradox of war – how suffering heightens compassion among men; how a burst of beauty in the sky van flower from anti-aircraft practice; how war bares the sickly tame, and inadequate peace; and how killers can be tender once relieved of their murderous
When I began reading Tony Barnstone’s “Holocausts …show more content…
In this article of Southwest Review, Fein thoroughly discusses and dissects what makes a modern work of war poetry and that characteristics that make it so appealing. After reading his article it was quite clear that Barnstone’s collection of work in “Tongue of War” exemplifies this concept of war poetry, but “Holocausts of Water and Fire” is proven to have the very characteristic that has been found in other works of this genre so to speak. Fein says in his article about modern war poetry “the immense and pervasive catastrophe of modern war, its depersonalization (the way men are absorbed by their machines, the fact that often they do not even see the opponents they kill) […] there was no escape from a world that was closing in- made for the feeling that there was no way to protect oneself from the historic international violence”. These words speak to the worries, yet justification that was ever so present in the poem as Truman expressed his fears that the reckoning of the human race will come as a result of the destruction that has plagued the earth, yet he notes that such a monstrous device will communicate the language he needs to his enemies and will be of use in such matters of chaos, no matter the consequences. Fein’s article confirms that the collection of Barnstone’s work is the prime example of modern war poetry as it is “fascinated by the paradox of war – how suffering heightens compassion among men; how a burst of beauty in the sky van flower from anti-aircraft practice; how war bares the sickly tame, and inadequate peace; and how killers can be tender once relieved of their murderous