Responding to a poem

The two poems that stood out the most to me were,” Immigrants in Our Own Land” by Jimmy Santiago and “The Song of Napalm” by Bruce Weigl. Upon reading “Immigrants in Our Own Land,”I had preconceived thoughts about what the poem was going to be
pertaining to. After reading the poem several times I realized there are many interpretations each reader could make towards the speakers words. The speaker painted a picture in my mind that an individual is an immigrant to their new surroundings. I feel the author presents the idea of immigrants coming to a new country and having the dreams and thoughts of a better future, yet only when arriving things are not at all what they seemed. We came here to get away from false promises…” (Santiago Line 33). Even though the speaker presented the poem as a prison theme such as when saying, “Across the way Joey is hands through the bars to hand Felipe a cigarette, men are hollering back and forth from cell to cell, saying there sinks don’t work, or somebody downstairs hollers angrily about a toilet overflowing, or that heaters don’t work” (Santiago Lines 46-52),it can be thought about in many aspects. I believe the speaker wanted to present the poem so that more than one type of audience could relate.
The poem “The Song of Napalm” was quite shocking and let alone the image it gave me was disturbing. I felt the speaker was deeply saddened by the image he had witnessed. The site of an innocent child being burned to death and anyone experiencing that would leave a nightmare in anyone’s thoughts. When the speaker says, “I try to imagine she runs down the road and wings…” (Weigl Line 30), it seems he feels that he wish he could do anything to rid that horrific site he experienced. This poem made me think about all the sites people experience and how these experiences can change each individual in many of ways.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171470
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=179708