Task one

Background of Children in the Darkness
The author of this poem is Henry M Bechtold.
Henry M Bechtold was sitting in his hotel room in Saigon, just before the Christmas of 2009 and he was writing a poem about girls who work in the park and how men treated them badly. He was angry but could not write anything that did not sound trite or weak. He looked at the TV and the news was on. He could not understand the newsreader but in the background was a boy with a helmet and automatic rifle. Then the poem flowed out. The words just came to him and he started typing as fast as he could.

What Henry M Bechtold is trying to say is that during a war, the children are like living in darkness and they have not seen the real world out there. And while they are stuck in this darkness, someone will teach them how to fight in the war. The children are not having classes in the schools and they may never have school. They cannot escape from the life they are in now and they are not free men.
We should give this children a chance, and teach them how to read, teach them how to dance and teach them how to be children. But the war war will consume them, and the will lose all their childhood. They will be stuck in the war, where there is no hope for them.

Children in the Darkness
There are children in the darkness
Who have not seen the light
There are children in the darkness
Who someone will teach to fight

Chalk and blackboards will not be
To this door there is no key
From this life they can not flee
And these children are not free

Could we simply light a candle
Could we give them half a chance
Could we teach them how to read
Could we teach them how to dance

Or will a war consume them
Their body and their soul
Will their life and blood be poured
Down some endless thirsty hole

Back into the darkness
From which there is no flight
Back into the darkness
Into which there shines no light

Henry M Bechtold