What does Gillian Clarke's poem Lament mean?

Lament' is an elegy, an expression of grief. It can be a sad, military tune played on a bugle. The poem uses the title as the start of a list of lamented people, events, creatures and other things hurt in the war, so after the word 'lament', every verse, and 11 lines, begin with 'for'.

:" The poem is about the Gulf War, which happened in 1991 when Iraq invaded Kuwait, and the United States, with Britain's help, bombed Iraq. This war has never really stopped. As we begin a new school year, it still threatens the world.

War can't be waged without grave damage to every aspect of life. All the details in the poem came from reports in the media. There were newspaper photographs of cormorants covered with oil - 'in his funeral silk'.

'The veil of iridescence on the sand' and 'the shadow on the sea' show the spreading stain of oil from bombed oil wells. The burning oil seemed to put the sun out, and poisoned the land and the sea. The 'boy fusilier who joined for the company,' and 'the farmer's sons, in it for the music', came from hearing radio interviews with their mothers.

The creatures were listed by Friends of the Earth as being at risk of destruction by oil pollution, and 'the soldier in his uniform of fire' was a horrific photograph of a soldier burnt when his tank was bombed. The ashes of language are the death of truth during war." Ms.

Clarke's elegy reveals in minute detail the comprehensive and catastrophic ill effects of the Gulf War. The Gulf War devastates not only the ecology but also the lives of so many people who die in the most gruesome manner for no reason of their own. But the sad truth which the "Lament" highlights is the fact that although it deals in particular with the Gulf War, war as a universal phenomenon has and is and will continue to be the brutal means by which mankind will settle its problems.

For the green turtle with her pulsing burden, in search of the breeding-ground. For her eggs laid in their nest of sickness. For the cormorant in his funeral silk, the veil of iridescence on the sand, the shadow on the sea.

For the ocean's lap with its mortal stain. For Ahmed at the closed border. For the soldier in his uniform of fire.

For the gunsmith and the armourer, the boy fusilier who joined for the company, the farmer's sons, in it for the music. For the hook-beaked turtles, the dugong and the dolphin, the whale struck dumb by the missile's thunder. For the tern, the gull and the restless wader, ….

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.