Homecoming

HomecomingBy Bruce Dawe

Recap Concept: Journey

• Composers have show the concept of journeys in various ways throughout their texts, highlighting the reasons for, the challenges within and the impacts after a physical journey has been taken.

Today’s lesson

• We will be looking at the journey of dead soldiers home from the Vietnam War in the Poem “Homecoming”

• Context: The Vietnam War: The civil war of Communist North Vietnam against the United States and Australia backed South Vietnam.

• South Vietnam lost the war.• Many people protested against this war• Over 5000 Australians died in this war

Student Representation of this Poem

• Write down three strong images in this video123

• http://ninglun.wordpress.com/2007/11/30/friday-australian-poem-17-bruce-dawe-homecoming/

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5DFqVFYbqU

Recap

• The Journey in “Gulf War”

Watch representationImage Line from the Poem

Homecomingby Bruce Dawe

All day, day after day, they’re bringing them home,they’re picking them up, those they can find, and bringing them home,they’re bringing them in, piled on the hulls of Grants, in trucks, in convoys,they’re zipping them up in green plastic bags,they’re tagging them now in Saigon, in the mortuary coolnessthey’re giving them names, they’re rolling them out ofthe deep-freeze lockers — on the tarmac at Tan Son Nhutthe noble jets are whining like hounds,they are bringing them home– curly heads, kinky-hairs, crew-cuts, balding non-coms– they’re high, now, high and higher, over the land, the steaming chow mein,

their shadows are tracing the blue curve of the Pacificwith sorrowful quick fingers, heading south, heading east,home, home, home — and the coasts swing upward, the old ridiculous curvaturesof earth, the knuckled hills, the mangrove-swamps, the desert emptiness…in their sterile housing they tilt towards these like skiers– taxiing in, on the long runways, the howl of their homecoming rises

surrounding them like their last moments (the mash, the splendour)then fading at length as they moveon to small towns where dogs in the frozen sunsetraise muzzles in mute salute,and on to cities in whose wide web of suburbstelegrams tremble like leaves from a wintering treeand the spider grief swings in his bitter geometrythey’re bringing them home, now, too late, too early.

their shadows are tracing the blue curve of the Pacific

the mash, the splendour

the knuckled hills

they’re zipping them up in green plastic bags,

wide web of suburbs

Read Story

• Answer Questions

Summary on the Journey

This poem is the story of dead troops heading home from war. This is a journey where the dead troops are zipped into “green plastic bags”. The poem shows how the dead troops are being brought home with a lack of respect as they are tagged and stored in “deep-freeze boxes”.They pass the “sterile” houses of suburban Australia which contrasts to the “knuckled hills” of Vietnam.The bodies return to “small towns” to the fanfare of the bands, but with the “grief” of those left behind.

How does this poem relate to “Gulf War”

• Both deal with loss of young people in war.• Both show the journey can be a sad event.• Both use a metaphor of a “web” to show how

their death effects people at home. Find the line that shows this.

Imagery

• Looking back at your table match 3 of the images with a line in the poem

How does it relate to Red Dog?

• Explain in one full sentence.

Spelling

Write down the spelling words and put six words into a good sentence.• mortuary• tarmac• surrounding• tremble• whining

• wintering• splendour• ridiculous • curvatures