Term 2 Online Home Learning - Poetry

Task 1

I have selected the poem "Rainbow Death" with a difficulty rating of 2 stars.

Rainbow Death

America did not foresee

Green, pink, purple and other colors death potpourri!

Expecting others to pay a high price.

Now thinking twice?

Toll on the innocent and unborn.

Omnipotent and disregarding who will mourn.

Reflective about all the illness, birth defects and prematurely dead.

All the deceit continues to spread.

Nefariously America led astray -

Generations untold WILL pay -

Execrable effects of agent orange spray!

Hubert Wilson

Conflict in "Rainbow Death"

Hubert Wilson
Ssgt USAF, 1968-1972

This small poem speaks of a modern day ingredient of warfare that has caused appalling death and suffering – not only to its intended victims, the Vietnamese people, but also the service personnel that used or even just came into contact with “Agent Orange”.

Wikipedia reports, “Agent Orange is the code name for a herbicide and defoliant—contaminated with TCDD—used by the U.S. military in its Herbicidal Warfare program during the Vietnam War.

According to Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in 400,000 deaths and disabilities, and 500,000 children born with birth defects.

From 1962 to 1971, Agent Orange was by far the most widely used of the so-called "Rainbow Herbicides" employed in the herbicidal warfare program. During the production of Agent Orange (as well as Agents Purple, Pink, and Green) dioxins were produced as a contaminant, which have caused numerous health problems for the millions of people who have been exposed. Agents Blue and White were part of the same program but did not contain dioxins.”

This poem may remind us that wars aren’t over when the wars are over.

Task 2

Point of View

The poem is written in the point of view of a Vietnam War veteran who served in the USAF Security Service.

America wanted to win the Vietnam war badly and would resort to anything for that outcome. Propelled by such human greed, they initiated the launch of the highly toxic Agent Orange on the Vietnamese "to pay a high price". However, things backfired and they are now "thinking twice" as the Agent Orange not only heavily affected the Vietnamese, but also affected themselves, "tolling on the innocent and unborn", causing innocent people to be eliminated.

Situation and Setting

Sadness - "toll on the innocent and unborn". Because of the war and the use of Agent Orange, many innocent people have been killed, thus causing a sad setting, together with the use of "toll", a harsh word, which means that the lives have to be sacrificed in order to win the war.

Harshness - "Generations untold WILL pay". By emphasizing on the word, "WILL", it causes a harsh setting as the younger generations will be paying the prices for what the older generations had caused. Also, "Expecting others to pay a high price" also creates a harsh setting as though the USA are going to make the Vietnam have a life worse than death.

Language and Diction

"potpourri" - is a mixture of dried materials. In this poem, potpourri is used to refer to the combination of the deaths of many people caused by the combinations of the different Agents.

"toll" - is the number of deaths resulting from some particular cause such as war. In this poem, toll is used to refer to the necessary deaths/sacrifices of the people regardless whether they are from the same country for USA to win the war.

Personal Response

War is frightening. What most of us know about war we learned from movies. The few who have first hand experience of war generally don't talk about it, and the rest of us don't ask. We know our soldiers will die if Singapore goes to war. We know they will also have to kill. But war has all sorts of social rationalization around it. We believe deep down that the soldiers will kill judiciously and die heroically, regardless of what we have learned from Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Born on the Forth of July, Good Morning, Vietnam, Saving Private Ryan, and countless other war movies. We want to believe that no one will die in vain. We want to believe that no young soldier will return psychically broken by morally ambiguous killing. And our culture goes to great lengths to preserve the heroic image of the soldier who dies defending their country.