Reflecting on my war poem

1. I wanted the reader to think about the effect on the family members when one of their family member goes to war, which is the dad. I wanted the reader to feel a sympathy towards the little boy, the mom and the father. The little boy feels lonely and sad because his dad is gone and also his daily life routine feels empty. The mom feels sad because his husband isn't there and feels sorry for her son because his dad is gone. The father misses his family while at war. In the end, his gentle smile changed and his warm hugs are still cold. War changes everybody in the family.

2.

Where’s my daddy?

Where’s he gone?

The soldier toy is left untouched in my bedroom,

And dinner feels lonely with just two plates

I wonder where my daddy is,

Is he at a meeting or overseas?

Or has he gone back to work?

I miss his gentle smile,

I miss his warm hugs,

I miss the days when we would stare at the clouds.

I really wish he was right here.

I can sense there is something wrong.

Mom paces back and forth across the room,

Her eyes are blank,

Her smile is broken.

I finally gathered all my courage up,

Because all the questions and guilt were haunting me.

I asked my mom gently with curiosity,

She looked taken aback and paused for a while.

Fidgeting with her hands, tears flowing down her cheeks,

She slowly began to tell the truth

Behind the disappearance of my dad.

The gory details and horrible conditions

Of war.

Several months had passed by,

His bedside table collecting dust

The emptiness echoed within the house.

Feeling lonely like a star in a sky.

But dragging footsteps broke the silence

BANG

The door slammed wide open,

And through the dark shadow came a familiar figure

Daddy is back home.

But there was a change in his gentle smile,

And his warm hugs turned into cold steel.

3. Faqeera's poem showed me how a person can be changed after experiencing war. No matter what type of relationship they had with war, they are affected by it somehow. War affected the whole family in this poem, but each in different ways. The son had to face the absence of his father, the father had to leave his family and the mom had eventually tell the son about his father. She's also saying the aftermath of war can scar someone's life, e.g the father.

4. I think the kid must be feeling very scared and wanting to know what happened but scared of what she will hear when she asks. She misses her father and wants everything to be back the way it was. She is probably worried about her mom and why is she crying. 

5. I actually got the desired reaction from both year 9 and 6. This poem is a bit about loneliness when a family member goes to war, which the readers interpreted well and correctly. But the year 6 kid focused my poem more on the mom than the other characters. I think to improve it I will write more on how the little boy and father feels, since how the mom feels is already clear. I will write about the little boy's sadness and loneliness and how his dad misses his family but still is scarred for life and has a change to his warm attitude. I can add similes and metaphors.

Suicide in the Trenches

I knew a simple soldier boy

Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know

The hell where youth and laughter go.

1. It’s about this soldier boy trapped in a trench because he’s sad and all alone, daydreaming in depression. In the end, he shoots himself. The crowd didn’t know about the boy, they were cheering when the soldiers came home but the crowd doesn’t know that the people who died weren’t acknowledged. They also didn’t know that the war with all its glory, has more than one side.

2. It’s secretive, there’s more than meets the eye. People cheer and are happy, but behind it, the soldiers are actually lonely and forced to do it because it is their duty.