Tangles & Tails: Tracey Kiff-Judson's Blog

Surrender

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Written by: Tracey Kiff-Judson
Category: Blog

Poetry Friday has arrived again!  This Friday, please visit Linda at TeacherDance for some poignant poetry posts.

My son brought this article to my attention.  It discusses the hypothetical question of whether Japan would have surrendered in WWII without the US dropping atomic bombs.  

The following image from the article struck me.

[US Air Force Photo, September 2, 1945]

It depicts a Japanese delegation onboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. They are there to participate in a formal WWII surrender ceremony.  We know how WWII ends from US history books.  We may even be able to intuit some of the emotions of the US Servicemen in this picture, but what if we also pause momentarily to consider this scenario from the Japanese point of view?  Can we fathom the emotions of that stoic group of men?

 

I Surrender

 

I come to you in top hat, gloves, and starched collar.

I come to you with dignitaries, generals, and commanders.

I come to you in solemnity, humility, and defeat.

 

I will surrender.

I will sign your papers and submit to your photographs, but

I will not share with you my rage, my hopelessness, my pain.

 

Tracey Kiff-Judson, draft © 2023

39 comments

  • Oh, Tracey, thank you for writing this poem from the perspective of those proud Japanese leaders. Wow, it is so poignant. I love the anaphora of "I come" and "I will" but then the defiant "I will not share with you..." So powerful.
  • War answers no questions and now with your own wondering, I think of Ukraine and Russia, hearing on the news today that thousands of Russian soldiers have been lost, along, of course, with thousands from Ukraine. It's heart-rending as you show in your poignant poem, Tracey. 
  • Tracey, what an original idea for a poem, and, although we can never know what they were thinking in this picture, I feel the language you’ve used matches their expressions and body language so very aptly.
  • What Linda M. said, but also the way you have long, listing lines in the first stanza that stop abruptly with the first line of the second stanza. Perfect pacing.
  • Tracey, this is so so powerful! Thanks for digging into the photo and this history. xo (p.s. your logo is so cool!)
  • Thank you sharing your brilliance. I appreciate the opportunity to think about surrender through your words. I wonder if yesterday’s surrender will force folks to think. I hope. 
  • It's important to remember that human beings fight wars. Thank you for the photo and poem that helps us to consider the POV of the Japanese. 
  • The clothes! They came in the garments of the winners, those who determine how history is recorded... What a dreadful and terrifying day that must have been. A striking poem.
  • The photo and the poem match so well in mood. In the mid-seventies my husband was in the Air Force, and we were at Yokota AFB near Tokyo. We were “English conversation partners” to a young Japanese man… he was starched and solemn much like the men in the photo. It was a very formal relationship.
    • What an interesting time that must have been for you.  I can imagine your starched and solemn conversation partner.
  • Tracey, this post is fascinating, especially the article that led you to write a poem from a different point of view. I actually read this earlier and the comment never went through. I am glad that you shared the photo and the article for background knowledge.
  • The end of the beginning and the beginning of the end all in one historic photograph, Tracey. All that ceremony after the chaos of war. Your words help to unpack the moment of surrender. Unspoken things,yet so very apparent in the behaviour of those present in that moment. 
  • Oof. The humility - and the rage - of surrender. One feels like submission, the other like a war continuing. I don't know what a different response might've done. I wonder, today, how we could ever call anything a "good war." 
  • Tracy, Such a powerful poem in such few lines.  I wonder too especially after seeing Oppenheimer.  To be inside the heads of those Japanese men,
  • "I will not share with you my rage." What a powerful ending. Thank you for stopping us with the photo and your insightful poem.

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