Both poets present the effects of conflict in ‘The Yellow Palm’ and in Marmetz Wood.
In The Yellow Palm, the effects of conflict are being presented by the soldiers and people. Minhinnick uses powerful images to describe the effects of the First gulf war, the rule of Saddam, the religion.
Robert Minhinnick uses these powerful images to create a sense of the after effects of the war in Baghdad. By focusing the poem in Palestine Street he shows the events have affected the everyday lives of people and their religion. In the first part of the poem, the narrator talks about a funeral pass, as the women are waving lilac steams, people who pass the funeral can see a man lay there who breathed in poisonous gas. This shows that an image of death can be seen.
Throughout the whole of the poem, in the first line there is always a refrain ‘As I made my way down Palestine Street’, in the second stanza Minhinnick always uses a ballad form to give a song like feel in the poem by giving each verse over to each of the strong images of the cultural and historical references of the war. The poem has a strong rhythm and rhyme scheme. In each of the end of the stanzas there’s always a rhyme at the…show more content… The only positive imagery is shown in the fifth stanza. ‘And a beggar child turned up his face and blessed it with a smile’. This line shows a vulnerable and a figure of purity and innocent image of the boy who is an outsider who has nothing to do with the war. Another line is shown is ‘and when the same child reached up to touch, the fruit feel in his arms’. The child is used to bring back humanity and hope, innocence and light or darkness. This last line can be shown as darkness as the yellow dates are poisonous from the gas and can show the how affected Palestine Street