Long Soldier's Injustice: Poetry Analysis

Injustice is appeared through the writing styles of the poems as both poets emphasize points with different approaches to demonstrate the injustice that has appeared. Long soldier’s narrative approach within her poem puts emphasis unintentionally on certain history events. She states “In the preceding sentence, the word “starved” does not need italics for emphasis.” (Page 5). This narration is a suggestion of the way we should read the line. It says that we should not emphasize the word, although by her stating that, a reader will automatically go back to read the line, and as a whole the entire line will be stressed. This is ironic as the opposite of what she says occurs unconsciously. She goes on with the commentary stating, “One should read, ‘The

Similarly, Ziadah highlights a certain line in her poem by repeating it a plenty of times from start to finish to keep the image of this line in your head. She uses repetition for many phrases, one that is extremely prominent is “We teach life, Sir”. This line is repeated constantly, and is even the title of the poem. This is highlighted as it displays the optimistic side of these civilians who do not know another future other than being caged in and bombed on by the Israelis. This line is her response to the reporter who asked “Don't you think everything would be resolved if you would just stop teaching so much hatred to your children?” (Page 2). Ziadah’s response truly exemplifies the truth that it is not their people who are purposefully building hatred, but it is the circumstances of being tortured and systematically murdered by the Israelis. Her single line response exposes the brutality of the Israeli government and the cowardice and manipulation of western reporters who truly do not understand and therefor incorrectly uncover the situation from the Palestinians