Analysing "Weapons Training"

Watch this short excerpt from an interview with Bruce Dawe and answer the following questions.

http://dl.screenaustralia.gov.au/module/1194/

The poem highlights the regimentation and humiliation dished out during defence training.

1. Who is ‘I’? Is the reader supposed to sympathise with him, do you think
2. What’s happening here? What is the context?
3. Why is the language clipped, the tone condescending?
4. What is the purpose of omitting most of the punctuation, including fullstops and capital letters?
5. What concepts do you consider demeaning to the soldiers and is the speaker’s choice of language acceptable in either the armed forces or in civilian life? Why has Dawe written in this way?
6. The speaker in the poem refers to ‘a mob of the little yellows’ and the ‘Charlies’ with their ‘rotten fish-sauce breath’. To whom is he referring and why has Dawe chosen language that most people would consider racist and offensive?
7. Does the opening line set the tone for the poem? How effective are onomatopoeic words ‘click’ and ‘pitter-patter’?
8. What is the point of the last line and the repetition of ‘dead’?
9. Dawe has chosen to use a regular rhyme scheme for this poem – abba – and finishing with a rhyming couplet. What is the effect of this?
10. What is the point of this poem? Would you consider this an anti-war poem? Explain.