A Tribute To Nick Ut: Eyewitness

A tribute to Huỳnh Công Út and Phan Thị Kim Phúc.

Taken by 'Nick' Ut on 8th June 1972, this iconic photograph won the Pulitzer Prize. A South Vietnamese bomber mistakenly dropped Napalm on the village of Trang Bang where civilians and South Vietnamese troops were sheltering in a temple. This was my first poem written to a photograph of war and what struck me was at what point does the photographer lay the camera down and start helping? Ut waited along the road for the casualties to appear. Having captured the tragedy, he gave water to Kim Phuc, the little girl at the centre of the photograph, and bundled her into a vehicle that took her to hospital, saving her life.

"Forgiveness made me free from hatred. I still have many scars on my body and severe pain most days but my heart is cleansed. Napalm is very powerful, but faith, forgiveness, and love are much more powerful. We would not have war at all if everyone could learn how to live with true love, hope, and forgiveness. If that little girl in the picture can do it, ask yourself: Can you?"

Kim Phúc, NPR 2008

Kim now lives in Canada with her husband and two children.

Music: (C) 'The End' by The Doors.


Eyewitness

How must it feel
to be the eyes of the world for a moment
and bring into focus the howling,
the soldiers' dumb disbelief
and the intimate contours of her agony?

You must seen those wild flowers bloom
on the moss-covered stone of the temple's roof;

you must have witnessed the earth melt and groan,
looked down an empty road
and into a filthy sky,
checked the light and waited,
wide-eyed.

© PoetryAgainstWar 2009

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• vietnam war
• poetry against war
• poem
• nick ut
• kim phuc
• june
• 1972
• larry burrows
• pulitzer prize
• photograph
• photographer
• trang bang
• napalm
• saigon
• jet
• road
• soldiers
• skyraider
• burn
• too hot
• cloud
• friendly fire
• the
• doors
• end

[certifiedchillin420]

this is one of the saddest things i think i've ever seen. i will never understand what continually compels people to do this sort of thing to others. what about the concept of peace is so elusive? why are peace and love and generosity seemingly unappealing? and why are so many so ready to accept this rather than peace? if this is what makes humans human than i refuse to be one.

[PoetryAgainstWar]

@certifiedchillin420 Don't lose faith in humanity - how many of your friends and family advocate death and destruction? Your comment reinforces may own faith in people.



[alaindavidevrard]

iconic photo and perhaps many other scene never recorded as those days, mobiles, twitters, goggle and internet didn't exists. Today, crimes against humanity cannot be hidden and telecommunication progress makes sure of that..

[PoetryAgainstWar]

@djscotty1111 Let the carnival begin!!! Great track, I'm old enough to remember it . . . despite the subject matter I deal with and the negative response it sometimes receives, I'm optimistic about us as a species. We're the only animal - as far as I know - that is saddled at an early age with the knowledge that one day we're going to die. Unfortunately, I think some people want to take as many others with them when they go.

[PoetryAgainstWar]

@djscotty1111 Maybe we as males are conditioned ever so subtley to be attracted to war, on whatever level. After all, if we all knew the true horror of conflict, our politicians would never get us to fight. I think you're right, there's something nasty lurking in the human psyche, what Christians call the Devil. I have no religion but I prefer the other word they use for him - the Beast. Our aggressive dominant streak is the vestige of our animal past, the beast or animal within. Or not.

[djscotty1111]

@PoetryAgainstWar What's a few thousand years of Brutality ;))) True ... Gary Clail HUMAN NATURE

I used to spin this track @ the Club I designed in Vancouver called The TWILIGHT ZONE of which I am a huge fan of the "Original "series with Rod Sterling "His story."... > Wish I met Him !!

Re comment : "Coming to terms with our own Mortality" Yes !...and "Our Own Desensitized INHUMANITY"

an outside the"Fishbowl " perspective.

[djscotty1111]

@PoetryAgainstWar I guess I am a hypocrite as well, I have collected and still collect WW11 items yet I am for Unity...Peace, Nationwide, All Countries in the World, in My Time...My Generation. Being Realistic, if Christ or Alien came to Earth Today depending on how Dangerous, "THEY COULD BE" if we Humans felt we could Dominate it has been our nature..."Habit" to take over, and that means Control , KILL if we can be the Dominant Being The Master Race.."WE WOULD" ( Gary Clail HUMAN NATURE )music

[PoetryAgainstWar]

@djscotty1111 Although I deplore war and violence in general, I own a PS3 and play Call Of Duty. What a hypocrite I am. All I can say is that a few million years of naked brutal aggression propelled us to the top of the food chain and you can't expect that to wear off in a few millenia of 'civilisation'. We love death, we follow it around the internet, the newspapers, slow for it when there's an accident on the other side of the road. Maybe it helps us to come to terms with our own mortality.

[djscotty1111]

@PoetryAgainstWar I feel I was a soldier in another life... for King and Country ! I joined the rest , all because of Bravado, only to be Horrified,...of "The Real Carnage of WAR ! " War... We Are Right ...but which?

I see the children suffering from shock ! have not seen any faces of the Soldiers but, might have missed it.

I appreciate Poetry against War but we seem to be a Society Comfortably Numb producing High Quality video Games Graphics selling ...The entertainment of death !

[PoetryAgainstWar]

@djscotty1111 Thanks for commenting. In their defence, I believe the South Vietnamese soldiers were caught up in the friendly fire incident and were suffering from shock.