Remarks from the Fray:
In War Work (Brooklyn, 1944-45) by Barry Goldensohn, we meet an eight year old boy who trusts knowledge as power. He and his dad are plane spotters to the potential service of homeland security while, just under the radar, his parents marriage seems falling apart. At eight, he can differentiate between "the slender Messerschmitt from Mustang," and "daring modern ace, graceful, slim, / the Lockheed Lightning with its twin booms."
But he doesn't wonder why parents would be awake, talking in bed till almost dawn. The real homeland security seems to be slipping away. Still, his antennae picked up on something: "I stayed awake, / heard the fearful murmur of their talk / and lay beyond comfort in the oncoming dawn."
War Work is a somewhat clunky poem whose meaning is hidden beneath too many words. Likewise Hiroshima, bombs dropped on Manhattan, and plane spotting may have obscured the meaning of parents fearful murmurs at night. Goldensohn may have intended for this poem to be a case in point, nevertheless, it might have been a better poem had he, more quickly and with less bulk, hit the point.
--waltz n capsize
(To reply, click here.)
"War Work" by Barry Goldensohn is a nostalgic look back at the things the narrator did as an eight-year-old with his father during World War II. Unfortunately, the poem lacks any knowing irony that would elevate the poem above mere nostalgia.
Like many others on the east and west coasts of the United States, they volunteered to watch for incoming enemy planes or ships. It was great fun. They'd take their "deck of silhouettes" provided by a government agency to the roof of their Brooklyn house and try to spot and identify planes. Oh, they were "masters" of their job, quizzing each other on the names of the various German and American planes whose silhouettes they studied. And they "could calculate their air speed / and know their payload of bombs." But all the two ever saw were an amusement park ride in Coney Island and some skyscrapers in Manhattan.
One night, when he woke to a great noise over Manhattan – west of Brooklyn, just like Japan -- he suspected a Japanese atom bomb dropped in retaliation for Hiroshima and Japan's defeat. His parents told him it was merely a storm, but keeping "a cool head," he "knew my parents / had lied to pacify me." And so he "lay beyond comfort in the oncoming dawn."
What are we to make of this reminiscence? That the boy was just a boy, thrilling to the adventure and danger of living in a country at war? That naively studying a book of silhouettes cannot truly protect us from life's dangers? That their "war work" was just play? It's hard to know what Goldensohn is trying to do here because he doesn't provide the reader with poetic markers.
Poets often say they have no idea where a poem will lead when they start writing it. But once they finish and discover where it led them, I expect them to go back and revise the poem to point in that direction. Robert Frost once wrote that a poem "ends in a clarification of life — not necessarily a great clarification, … but in a momentary stay against confusion." I see no such clarification, even a momentary one, in Barry Goldensohn's "War Work."
--MaryAnn
(To reply, click here.)
In "War Work (Brooklyn, 1944-1945)", Barry Goldensohn takes a reminiscent look back to his childhood in Brooklyn during and immediately after WW II. But, to me, the sentiment of much of the poem is misplaced in time and more reflects our feelings in the mid 50s and early 60s.
Having grown up in the same time frame, just across the river from New York in New Jersey, my own recollections of the post-war period were ones of joy and jubilation. The war was over, America was on the road to economic recovery, and the future seemed to be filled with hope. It was only later, with the rise of the Soviet threat, that I can remember any sense of fear and foreboding. That was the period when Americans built bomb shelters and we practiced "duck and cover" drills in school.
In the poem, Goldensohn's father had been a Civil Defense Watcher during the war. He and his young son studied the silhouettes of the German and American aircraft of the day so that they could quickly recognize each plane. But, of course, all they ever saw was the familiar skyline of New York, since none of the German planes had the range to cross the Atlantic.
But after the war, the young boy is awakened one night by a thunder storm and is convinced that an atomic bomb has been dropped on New York. Even after being consoled by his parents, the 8 year old stays awake and fearful, waiting for the coming dawn.
The poem is reasonably well crafted and effectively portrays the irrational fears that sometime plague the minds of young children. But, from my own experience of the period, the poem just doesn't work. I was more frightened by what might be hiding under my bed or behind the closet door than I was of a nuclear holocaust in the 1940s.
--dwnny1
(To reply, click here.)
(8/6)
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Remarks from the Fray:
In War Work (Brooklyn, 1944-45) by Barry Goldensohn, we meet an eight year old boy who trusts knowledge as power. He and his dad are plane spotters to the potential service of homeland security while, just under the radar, his parents marriage seems falling apart. At eight, he can differentiate between "the slender Messerschmitt from Mustang," and "daring modern ace, graceful, slim, / the Lockheed Lightning with its twin booms."
But he doesn't wonder why parents would be awake, talking in bed till almost dawn. The real homeland security seems to be slipping away. Still, his antennae picked up on something: "I stayed awake, / heard the fearful murmur of their talk / and lay beyond comfort in the oncoming dawn."
War Work is a somewhat clunky poem whose meaning is hidden beneath too many words. Likewise Hiroshima, bombs dropped on Manhattan, and plane spotting may have obscured the meaning of parents fearful murmurs at night. Goldensohn may have intended for this poem to be a case in point, nevertheless, it might have been a better poem had he, more quickly and with less bulk, hit the point.
--waltz n capsize
(To reply, click here.)
"War Work" by Barry Goldensohn is a nostalgic look back at the things the narrator did as an eight-year-old with his father during World War II. Unfortunately, the poem lacks any knowing irony that would elevate the poem above mere nostalgia.
Like many others on the east and west coasts of the United States, they volunteered to watch for incoming enemy planes or ships. It was great fun. They'd take their "deck of silhouettes" provided by a government agency to the roof of their Brooklyn house and try to spot and identify planes. Oh, they were "masters" of their job, quizzing each other on the names of the various German and American planes whose silhouettes they studied. And they "could calculate their air speed / and know their payload of bombs." But all the two ever saw were an amusement park ride in Coney Island and some skyscrapers in Manhattan.
One night, when he woke to a great noise over Manhattan – west of Brooklyn, just like Japan -- he suspected a Japanese atom bomb dropped in retaliation for Hiroshima and Japan's defeat. His parents told him it was merely a storm, but keeping "a cool head," he "knew my parents / had lied to pacify me." And so he "lay beyond comfort in the oncoming dawn."
What are we to make of this reminiscence? That the boy was just a boy, thrilling to the adventure and danger of living in a country at war? That naively studying a book of silhouettes cannot truly protect us from life's dangers? That their "war work" was just play? It's hard to know what Goldensohn is trying to do here because he doesn't provide the reader with poetic markers.
Poets often say they have no idea where a poem will lead when they start writing it. But once they finish and discover where it led them, I expect them to go back and revise the poem to point in that direction. Robert Frost once wrote that a poem "ends in a clarification of life — not necessarily a great clarification, … but in a momentary stay against confusion." I see no such clarification, even a momentary one, in Barry Goldensohn's "War Work."
--MaryAnn
(To reply, click here.)
In "War Work (Brooklyn, 1944-1945)", Barry Goldensohn takes a reminiscent look back to his childhood in Brooklyn during and immediately after WW II. But, to me, the sentiment of much of the poem is misplaced in time and more reflects our feelings in the mid 50s and early 60s.
Having grown up in the same time frame, just across the river from New York in New Jersey, my own recollections of the post-war period were ones of joy and jubilation. The war was over, America was on the road to economic recovery, and the future seemed to be filled with hope. It was only later, with the rise of the Soviet threat, that I can remember any sense of fear and foreboding. That was the period when Americans built bomb shelters and we practiced "duck and cover" drills in school.
In the poem, Goldensohn's father had been a Civil Defense Watcher during the war. He and his young son studied the silhouettes of the German and American aircraft of the day so that they could quickly recognize each plane. But, of course, all they ever saw was the familiar skyline of New York, since none of the German planes had the range to cross the Atlantic.
But after the war, the young boy is awakened one night by a thunder storm and is convinced that an atomic bomb has been dropped on New York. Even after being consoled by his parents, the 8 year old stays awake and fearful, waiting for the coming dawn.
The poem is reasonably well crafted and effectively portrays the irrational fears that sometime plague the minds of young children. But, from my own experience of the period, the poem just doesn't work. I was more frightened by what might be hiding under my bed or behind the closet door than I was of a nuclear holocaust in the 1940s.
--dwnny1
(To reply, click here.)
(8/6)