War Photograph: The Ravages of WarBy: Audrey Armstrong
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Kate Daniels’s ekphrastic poem, “War Photograph,” is based on a haunting photo captured by Nick Ut. Ut took the photograph, Phan Thj Kim Phuc Fleeing, during the Vietnam war. In the center of the photo is a naked girl, amongst other clothed children all of whom are screaming and running towards the camera in terror. Behind the children are soldiers who are also walking towards the camera; however, their figures are notably darker than that of the children. Kate Daniels’s ekphrastic poem about this photograph powerfully describes the devastations of war and how those in America observe them from thousands of miles away.
In the first verse of the poem, Daniels simply describes the photo but emphasizes, “the world turned to trash behind her.” Daniels compares the landscape behind the running children and soldiers to trash, or discarded matter by definition, because it has been ravaged by war. Daniels continues to describe the photograph poetically but also brings another aspect of the Vietnam War into her poem. Daniels describes how those who are safe in America view the photograph, “10,000 miles away, reading the caption/beneath her picture/in a weekly magazine.” Daniels uses these lines to show how Americans will find this picture disturbing, but also as just another picture in a magazine. Daniels writes, “All over the country/we’re feeling sorry for her/and being appalled at the war/being fought in the other world.” By referring to the location of the war as “the other world,” Daniels shows how separate American lives are from the terrified girl in the picture. And although people are “feeling sorry for her” after viewing her picture, those in America are still another world away and carrying on with their lives after glancing at the horrors of war in Ut’s photograph. Daniels also mentions how this terrified girl must imagine those in America. “She’s running to us. For how can she know, her feet beating a path on another continent? How can she know what we really are? From the distance, we look/so terribly human.” Daniels visualizes that this little girl is looking to the American forces and American people for help. However, Daniels knows that most people who view the photograph will simply be appalled and cannot truly do anything to help this little girl, calling them “terribly human.” Daniels does a hauntingly excellent job of capturing the horror featured in Ut’s photograph and she also successfully illustrates how those in America react to the horrors of war that they will, likely, never experience. |