Question

what is the background of poem-A Small Pain In My Chest

Answer 1

‘A Small Pain in my Chest’ is Michael Mack’s lyrical cry over the Vietnam War and the uncountable lives it claimed of innocent young soldiers. This poem does not have any vitriolic hatred spewing paper, but a silent mourning over the loss of humanity which war entails. The anti-war agenda of the poet is with much sympathy and distress. He does not directly question the destructing effects of war, but instead takes us in the middle of a battlefield, next to a dying man who does not even have enough water with him to clean and aid his grave battle wound.