Comparing Beach Burial And I Was Only Nineteen, By Kenneth Slessor

Poetry has been used for centuries as a means to explore emotions and complex ideas through language, though individuals express similar ideas in wholly different forms. One such idea that has been explored through poetry in numerous ways is that of war and the associated loss, grief, and suffering. Two noted Australian poets shown to have accomplished this are Kenneth Slessor with his work ‘Beach Burial’ and John Schumann’s ‘I Was Only Nineteen’. Both of these works examine the complexities of conflict, but with somewhat different attitudes.

Slessor is one of Australia’s most famous modern poets, and is well remembered as the driving force behind modernist poetry techniques in Australia. He was employed as a war correspondent throughout the

Published in 1944, the poem itself is an elegy, addressing the melancholy and sorrow of wartime death, as indicated by the title ‘Beach Burial’. This title gives clear meaning to the sombre nature of the work, and the enigmatic nature of it holds the attention of the audience. The entirety of the poem is strewn with poetic devices, such as personification of dead sailors as “…they sway and wander in the waters far under”, the words inscribed on their crosses being choked, and the “sob and clubbing of the gunfire” (Slessor). Alliteration is used to great effect in lines such as that describing the soldiers being “bur[ied]…in burrows” and simile in the likening of the epitaph of each seaman to the blue of drowned men’s lips and onomatopoeia is shown in the “purple drips” (Slessor). The predominant mood of the work is ephemeral, with various references to the transient nature of humanity. The ethereal adjectives used to describe and characterise objects within the poem allow a more abstract interpretation of what would normally be concrete in meaning. The rhythm of this piece is markedly similar to the prevalent concept of tidal ebb and flow, with lines falling into an ABCB rhyme scheme and concepts

He drew inspiration from his brother-in-law, whose experiences during the Vietnam War are the basis for the song’s narrative. The song is thus a narrative style confession, and the title is significant in that it summarises the central theme of regret found throughout the writing. The subtitle (A Walk In The Light Green) describes the dangerous treks through lightly forested areas, where landmines were found most prominently during the Vietnam campaign. Perhaps the most powerful poetic device used in this writing is that of point-of-view, this being the retelling of the story from a first person perspective, allowing profound understanding of the inner thoughts of the character. Working in conjunction with this powerful medium is the shift between present and past tense in the verses and chorus of the song. Transitioning from a recollection of the “long march from cadets” to a plea as to “why [he] still can’t get to sleep?” (Schumann) juxtaposes the horrors of war with the mundane reality of civilian life. The meter of the poem stresses many consecutive short words, such as “…young and strong and clean…with my SLR and greens” and “…mud and blood and tears” and the rhyming scheme changes throughout the song between ABCB, ABAB and ABBB. This change contributes to the