Beautiful Wreckage
W.D Ehrhar t
Presented by:
Raymond Herrera
BEAUTIFUL WRECKAGE

What if I didn’t shoot the old lady
running away from our patrol,
or the old man in the back of the
head,
or the boy in the marketplace?
Or what if the boy—but he didn’t
have a grenade, and the woman
in Hue
didn’t lie in the rain in a mortar pit
with seven Marines just for food,
Gaffney didn’t get hit in the knee,
Ames didn’t die in the river, Ski
didn’t die in a medevac chopper
between Con Thien and Da
Nang.
In Vietnamese, Con Thien means
place of angels. What if it really was
instead of the place of rotting sandbags,
incoming heavy artillery, rats and mud.
What if the angels were Ames and Ski,
or the lady, the man, and the boy,
and they lifted Gaffney out of the mud
and healed his shattered knee?
What if none of it happened the way I said?
Would it all be a lie?
Would the wreckage be suddenly beautiful?
Would the dead rise up and walk?
WHAT IS THE POEM
ABOUT?
The poem is about the Vietnam War. It talks about the things that
happen in certain areas of Vietnam and how war affected U.S soldiers.
WHO IS THE SPEAKER?
HOW DO YOU KNOW?
 The speaker is a male U.S soldier. I know this because of the situation that is
happening to his unit. Also, the way he is telling the story is like a man
remembering things he regrets.
WHAT IS THE THEME OR
LESSON OF THE POEM?
 The theme of the story is for the reader to introduce a couple of things that
would happen in war.
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE
OF THIS POEM?
 The purpose of the poem is for the reader to understand how war
can affect a person emotionally.
WHAT LITERARY
DEVICES AND SOUND
DEVICES ARE USED IN
THIS POEM?
(INCLUDE TEXTUAL
EVIDENCE)
 Repetition: “Would it all be a lie? Would the wreckage be suddenly beautiful?
Would the dead rise up and walk?”
 Contrast: “Would the wreckage be suddenly beautiful?”
 Metaphor: “Would the dead rise up and walk?”
WHAT IS THE TONE OF THE POEM? WHAT
WORDS HELPED YOU FIGURE THIS OUT?
(CHOOSE 5 WORDS)
 Lie, rise up, beautiful, grenade, shoot.
 The tone of the poem is a mix of confusion, and sadness because the speaker
talks about beautiful things but he is sad of the things he did. Also, the poem is
confusing because the speaker is confused about the events that he witnessed.
CHOOSE AT LEAST
THREE UNKNOWN
WORDS
 Artillery
 Medevac chopper
 Hue
H OW D O ES T H E T I T L E
C O N N EC T T O T H E C O N T EN T
O F T H E P O EM ? I F I T D O ES N ’ T,
EX P L A I N W H Y.
 The title connects to the poem because the speaker talks about disasters and
people dying to angels healing the injured.
W H A T Q U E S T I O N S D I D Y O U H AV E
W H E N Y O U F I R S T A N A LY Z E D T H E
POEM?
WHAT WERE THE ANSWERS TO
THESE QUESTIONS?
 Is the speaker injured? The speaker doesn’t seem to be injured because he is
remembering things.
 What war is it? The speaker is talking about the Vietnam war.
 What is beautiful about a wreckage? This question was not answered.
IMAGE
I chose this picture because the poem talks about the Vietnam war. This can
symbolize the speaker talking because he is remembering what happen to his
friends.
SONG
 “The world we knew won't come back
The time we've lost can't get back
The life we had won't be ours again”
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qOvNgEsZ9s
 This song is related to the poem because many lives were lost and many people saw
how everything was turning around but there was still hope.