Here are six spelling words put into a sentence: The soldiers were brought home in a mortuary manner and stored on the tarmac in a deep freeze, as their shadows traced the Pacific's curve and the ridiculous curvatures of earth surrounded them.

1. Homecoming
By Bruce Dawe

2. Recap Concept: Journey
• Composers have show the concept of journeys
in various ways throughout their texts,
highlighting the reasons for, the challenges
within and the impacts after a physical
journey has been taken.

3. Today’s lesson
• We will be looking at the journey of dead
soldiers home from the Vietnam War in the
Poem “Homecoming”
• Context: The Vietnam War: The civil war of
Communist North Vietnam against the United
States and Australia backed South Vietnam.
• South Vietnam lost the war.
• Many people protested against this war
• Over 5000 Australians died in this war

4. Student Representation of this Poem
• Write down three strong images in this video
1
2
3

5. • http://ninglun.wordpress.com/2007/11/30/fri
day-australian-poem-17-bruce-dawe-
homecoming/
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5DFqVFY
bqU

6. Recap
• The Journey in “Gulf War”

7. Image Line from the Poem
Watch representation

8. Homecoming
by Bruce Dawe
All day, day after day, they’re bringing them home,
they’re picking them up, those they can find, and bringing them home,
they’re bringing them in, piled on the hulls of Grants, in trucks, in convoys,
they’re zipping them up in green plastic bags,
they’re tagging them now in Saigon, in the mortuary coolness
they’re giving them names, they’re rolling them out of
the deep-freeze lockers — on the tarmac at Tan Son Nhut
the noble jets are whining like hounds,
they are bringing them home
– curly heads, kinky-hairs, crew-cuts, balding non-coms
– they’re high, now, high and higher, over the land, the steaming chow mein,

9. their shadows are tracing the blue curve of the Pacific
with sorrowful quick fingers, heading south, heading east,
home, home, home — and the coasts swing upward, the old ridiculous
curvatures
of earth, the knuckled hills, the mangrove-swamps, the desert emptiness…
in their sterile housing they tilt towards these like skiers
– taxiing in, on the long runways, the howl of their homecoming rises

10. surrounding them like their last moments (the mash, the
splendour)
then fading at length as they move
on to small towns where dogs in the frozen sunset
raise muzzles in mute salute,
and on to cities in whose wide web of suburbs
telegrams tremble like leaves from a wintering tree
and the spider grief swings in his bitter geometry
they’re bringing them home, now, too late, too early.

11. their shadows are tracing the blue
curve of the Pacific

12. the mash, the splendour

13. the knuckled hills

14. they’re zipping them up in green
plastic bags,

15. wide web of suburbs

16. Read Story
• Answer Questions

17. Summary on the Journey
This poem is the story of dead troops heading
home from war. This is a journey where the dead
troops are zipped into “green plastic bags”. The
poem shows how the dead troops are being
brought home with a lack of respect as they are
tagged and stored in “deep-freeze boxes”.
They pass the “sterile” houses of suburban Australia
which contrasts to the “knuckled hills” of Vietnam.
The bodies return to “small towns” to the fanfare of
the bands, but with the “grief” of those left behind.

18. How does this poem relate to “Gulf
War”
• Both deal with loss of young people in war.
• Both show the journey can be a sad event.
• Both use a metaphor of a “web” to show how
their death effects people at home. Find the
line that shows this.

19. Imagery
• Looking back at your table match 3 of the
images with a line in the poem

20. How does it relate to Red Dog?
• Explain in one full sentence.

21. Spelling
Write down the spelling • wintering
words and put six words • splendour
into a good sentence. • ridiculous
• mortuary • curvatures
• tarmac
• surrounding
• tremble
• whining