Comparing War Poems 'The Photograph And Disabled'

According to the Oxford Dictionary, loss is defined as "the fact or process of losing something or someone". "The Photograph" by Peter Kocan, "Disabled" by Wilfred Owen and "Dear..." by Paul Cameron all express the idea of loss in relation to war. Kocan’s poem, set in World War 1 involves the death of a soldier whose life is remembered through a photograph and similarly, “Disabled” recalls the existence of a soldier confined to a wheelchair after losing his legs in battle. In contrast, “Dear...” focuses upon the Vietnam War and expresses the far reaching impact of death in the form of a letter. All three war poems explore the physical and emotional pain of loss, and do so through clever poetic techniques and stylistic features.

In the first stanza of "The Photograph", loss is introduced through the metaphorical “treasured possession" of a photograph "of a young man" who went to war and “didn't come back". In contrast "Disabled", narrated
Loss of time is metaphorically demonstrated in "those brief sliding moments on the wharf/have (now) become sixty years”. The soldier who now "stares out of the photograph" is but a memory. On the other hand, "Disabled" finishes with repetition and a rhetorical question to influence readers to deeply think about why the nurses don’t “come?" and take in the disabled soldier. Having lost his independence and his ability to live at home, he will now "will spend a few sick years in Institutes" . War has rendered him dependent and helpless. Loss is again expressed in "Dear..." through the "fallen men” whose “memories never end" . It is “their death (that) keeps pounding away/ as others kneel down to pray”. While the poets of "The Photograph" and "Disabled" conclude their poems with a resignation of loss, Cameron ends with sadness and grief for the alliterative “combat