I found TransAtlantic by Colum McCann to be a good read and an impressively written book. The Writers' Club@Columbus examined a section beginning on page 155 that described war and its horrors—here's a paragraph of it.
"She stood at the window. It was her one hundred and twenty-eighth day of watching men die. They came down the road in wagons pulled by horses. She had never seen such a bath of killing before. Even the horses seemed incredulous. Kicking up dust behind them. Their eyes huge and sad. The wheels screeched. The line of wagons stretched down the path, into the trees. The trees themselves stretched off into the war."Using Colum McCann’s descriptive approach as a model, we thought of war and writing and tried to inject ourselves into the scene.
The ground beneath my feet was trembling with the multiple gun shots that came from the soldiers outside of the red tent. It was the second week here, and I was sure, deep inside that I made a horrible choice coming here. It was not time to regret it now. The ear piercing scream of the soldier lying on the bed brought me to reality. I quickly grabbed some bandages to cover his wounds and some alcohol to clean them. This was a rough job, I knew. But I signed my sentence coming here in the first place.—Elianny Moronta
The war takes violent pride it takes a people as one then divides and like a single celled organism it dies.—Lenny Collado
Peoples’ dead bodies around me, many of them missing different parts like arms, legs and heads that are everywhere... The beautiful environment that this place used to be is now a perfect example of what we are doing to ourselves just for a little bit of money or a few drops of black gold...—Diana Uriarte
Here's a collective poem we wrote now edited.
Government Sponsored
Everywhere dead bodies missing arms and legs and heads.
“Johnny, get your ass up! They’re firing at us. You with me? We’re getting through this.”
Trembling, our feet under ground, bombs, guns, screams, panicked soldiers red soaked,
rising smoke, choking tastes, ashes& bones buried in dirt& eyes open, unseeing, silenced voice.
Environment, this beautiful place used to be. What are we doing to ourselves? For Just a little bit of money, a few drops of black gold, the perfect example,
war takes violent pride, takes people as one, then divides& counts.