I forgot to post this a while ago… The first one is the one I originally wrote (from the perspective of a WWI soldier in All Quiet on the Western Front), but I decided that it didn’t quite work in enough factual information after we had talked about these in class. So, the second one is one that we wrote as a sample for my poetry lesson with my sophomores – trying to show them how to put a few more specific details from their research into it.
Poem 1:
I am a soldier
I wonder what’s happening at home…
I hear rapid-fire machine guns
I see bodies and corpse rats
I want to sleep without fear
I am a soldier in the Great War
I pretend this is a dream
I feel dirt under my fingernails from digging trenches
I touch the hospital bed where my friend’s leg once was
I worry about my mother, ill with cancer at home
I cry without knowing
I am a soldier in the War to End All Wars
I understand that life will never be the same now
I scream, “Stretcher-bearer!”
I dream of clean sheets
I try to rely on Chance and Luck
I hope my comrades can survive
I am a soldier
Poem 2:
I am poison gas during the Great War
I wonder if weather conditions will be favorable enough for my use today
I hear the military officers say that I may be too cruel to be used
I see the soldiers around me fall, clutching their chests
I want to do my part for the German army
I am poison gas
I pretend that nothing can stop me
I feel myself seep into the lungs of the French and British soldiers
I touch their souls and take their lives
I worry I will destroy my own men, as well, if the wind blows me backwards…
I fulfill my purpose as a mighty weapon
I am poison gas during World War One
I understand that men try to escape me, covering their mouths with socks soaked in bicarbonate of soda
I say, “You can run, but you can’t hide…”
I dream of bodies lying helpless, suffocating in their trenches
I try to spread myself as far as I can across No Man’s Land
I hpe I can help my army win this war
I am poison gas
