Homecoming by Bruce Dawe
The poem ‘Homecoming was created in 1968 by Bruce Dawe (15 February 1930), it is about the soldiers in the Vietnam War coming come dead. Some of the skills he uses include repetition of the words theyre and home, pauses to make the poem more gloomy to the readers and Australian colloquial such as curly- heads, kinky hairs, crew-cuts, balding non-coms and a few more instead of using their names.
He also uses repartitioning of the suffix “-ing” in “bringing”, “zipping”, “picking”, “tagging”, and “giving”, describing the actions of the body processors, establishes irony. These verbs imply life and vitality, in stark contrast to the limp, lifeless, cold body that they handle each day. Repetition is used effectively to highlight the shocking brutality that has manifested in all wars throughout history.
The messages and emotions in the poem tells us the lives that were pointless taken due to the war and the way the soldiers that returned dead was treated inhumane and undignified. He also speaks on behalf of the mute, dead soldiers who have no way of expressing their suffering and loss of hope.
By using the tittle ‘Homecoming he implicated the word with the shocking reality of dead soldiers flown home from Vietnam to grieving families. The word “homecoming” usually implies a celebration or Heroic reception for a great achievement, with a return to roots and family.
All day, day after day, theyre bringing them home,
theyre picking them up, those they can find, and bringing them home,
theyre bringing them in, piled on the hulls of Grants, in trucks, in convoys,
theyre zipping them up in green plastic bags,
theyre tagging them now in Saigon, in the mortuary