Protest Poetry Essay The power of protest poetry is its ability to appeal to and even influence the emotions of human beings through the narration of people's experiences. He is able to draw public attention to the sins of humanity and the crimes it has committed. It also allows the composer to express his opinions on a controversial issue and target it at a specific audience. His ability to appeal to human emotions was demonstrated with Cold Chisel's "Khe Sanh" and Archie Roach's "Took the Children Away", both of which chronicle the experiences of someone who has experienced a traumatic incident. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay. Both authors use colloquial language to create a powerful realism that the audience can identify with. Representing the experience of a certain group is a characteristic that protest poetry has the ability to achieve, thus allowing people to express themselves. Protest poetry is able to raise awareness of these events that victims have gone through and the issues that have formed because of it. The ability to elicit a response from the audience is another characteristic of protest poetry. Due to society's ignorance and contemptuous attitude towards the Western country's involvement in the Vietnam War, many Vietnam War veterans suffered from unfairly directed hatred. The televised Battle of Khe Sanh did not help public attitudes going into the Vietnam War. Cold Chisel's "Khe Sanh" chronicles a Vietnam War veteran's struggle to be recognized as a person upon his return to Australia. It explores the profound sadness and confusion he experiences and his inability to ignore the horrors of war, compounded by his lack of social acceptance. Once again, this ignorance and lack of understanding is seen in Roach's “Took the Children Away.” The Australian government's choice to force Aboriginal children to leave their families and assimilate them into "white ways" has caused much anger and criticism. Similar to Cold Chisel's "Khe Sanh", Archie Roach's traumatic experiences depicted in "Took the Children Away" as a child, show his tone of bitterness and intense feelings of anger and sadness towards the white government. His separation from his family early in his life left him traumatized and in pain, leading him to abuse alcohol to ease his pain. Like many (but not all) Aboriginal children of that period, he was able to find joy in reuniting with his family and culture. Protest poetry represents people's experiences and allows them to express themselves. Cold Chisel's "Khe Sanh" character is constantly searching for meaning in his life and has an inability to deal with emotional pain after leaving the Vietnam War. Through the use of symbolism in "I left my heart to the Khe Sanh sappers" and "I sold my soul with my cigarettes to the black market man" Cold Chisel indicates that the character has a deep sense of guilt in participate in Khe Sanh and he openly admits it through these lines. The sense of truth rings true and the audience is able to understand the character's expression of himself. Roach is able to recount his experience of being separated from his family and then reuniting with them. Roach's tone in the repetition "Taken away the children" reinforces his feelings of anger and sadness at the white government's actions of displacing Aboriginal families and ignoring their feelings. The.