Adi Chaham week 3- “A Hundred People Died on First Hill” by Kyle "Guante" Tran Myhre
For this week's poem, I chose “A Hundred People Died on First Hill” by Kyle "Guante" Tran Myhre. The speaker shows his emotion as someone who has lost a close family member/friend, and dealing with the grief. To him, it seemed that the world forgot this person even existed.
The poem addresses the feeling of the world moving on from something you still care about. It’s about the world stopping for a few minutes, maybe a few hours or a few days but for you, it's something that impacts you forever. After reading the poem, I’m reminded of when people will post on social media of a significant event, and then simply forget about it once the images are gone from the feed.
This poem applies to so many people because every person has faced a similar situation. This could relate to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting where it affected so many people. So many people have lost their loved ones, and they’re still dealing with that grief to this day. When the shooting happened, people across the nation and especially, across Florida posted about the shooting and wrote how these kids were heroes. As the poem says, “A hundred people died on First Hill. And the Boss calls them heroes. But did they die because they were heroes, or are they heroes because they died? Does calling someone a hero make it easier to accept their death?” The people who were at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting, had family or friends there or knew people there, were impacted and will be impacted forever while the rest of the world simply moves on. Although this is disappointing, it’s reality and occurs so often. Every year, on the day of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting, where 17 students, teachers and coaches, all heroes, died, I notice a decrease in the amount of people posting about it. Four years have passed and people have already forgotten.
Throughout the poem, about every few lines, the title of the poem is written to emphasize the importance and to make sure the reader remembers that despite one hundred people dying, this is going on and this is happening. Even though one hundred people died, people don't remember these people. Even though one hundred people died, people forget. Even though 1one hundred people died, and thousands of peoples lives have been affected, it was a one time thing to remember them and now it's gone.
https://guante.info/2022/08/12/firsthill/
Wow. This is a really impactful poem. The example you gave about Stoneman Douglas fits perfectly and relates to so many people around us. Even the smaller situations like when a family member dies lasts forever. So many situations happen all the time and they last, the days move on, then months, then years, and that event happened and you might not forget but the world keeps moving on as if nothing ever actually happened. It’s really sad and I know for sure that this poem was a reminder to always remember any event like Stoneman Douglas, or the Holocaust, or even a family member dying. I will always remember.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of the poem is very complex. There are some people's deaths in life that the world will never forget, and there are some people the world forgets whether it's intentional or not. I feel like we say to ourselves that we will never forget someone, but I feel it's inevitable. However, I believe that deep down, we will never forget the impact that person or situation has made in our life regardless of whether it was big or small.
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