A Cold Coming

This poem combines the images of war with the ideas of birth and death by using imagery. When the author speaks on sperm in his poem, he is speaking on both death and birth along with the war. When I think of war, I think of a bunch of people surrounded by air, fighting and dying so fast. One minute they're here and the next minute they're not. Birth an death are like the same way. When one person dies, another person is born. Then the author also states, "the sperm in one ejaculation equals the whole Iraqi nation". I'm not sure exactly what I want to say about that, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with war, birth, and death. I think the author uses this line to combine sperm banks and procreation to war. I think the author does this because he is trying ro explain to the readers how simple, yet life changing and tragic war can be. There are millions of sperm that gets released during ejaculation, but millions of them don't make it to their destination. War is just like that. Millions of soldiers go out their to fight, but millions of them don't make it to the end. I think it is important that the soldier is talking to a poet rather than a journalist because a poet could put the experience into perspective and create a sentimental type of feeling rather than a journalist who will put the experience into statistical perspective.