Initially, extracting and understanding the meaning of a poem, as well as how the poet creates this meaning, may seem challenging and quite exhausting to some. However, with the right tools and knowledge of how to apply them, it is not as difficult as it seems, but rather doable. In her investigation, “Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide”, regarding New Criticism, Lois Tyson explains that when reading a poem one must analyze its formal elements – which she defines as “its images, symbols, metaphors, rhymes , meter, point of view, setting, characterization, plot, and so on” (137) – as well as his linguistic devices such as irony, ambiguity, and tension, to understand the “multiple and often conflicting meanings woven into it" (138). The combination of these formal elements and linguistic devices creates the organic unity of a poem; that is, "they work together to establish its theme, or the meaning of the work as a whole" (138). Furthermore, a close reading using the New Critical style of the two poems, “What Every Soldier Should Know” by Brian Turner and “Skull Trees, South Sudan” by Adrie Kusserow, reveals that both poems are similar in that they illustrate ideas of war and survival, although each poet constructs his poems in different ways. Turner's poetry works primarily through antithesis to highlight irony, as well as literal imagery, in order to exemplify the chaos and psychological trauma of war plaguing soldiers in the Middle East. Kusserow's poetry, on the other hand, works on metaphor and symbolism to emphasize the effects of the Second Sudanese Civil War on the lost boys of South Sudan. Furthermore, in his poem "What Every Soldier Should Know", Turner creates meaning primarily through Irony, produced through h...... middle of paper ... is similar in that it describes ideas of war and survival, both poets construct their respective poems differently. Turner's poetry works primarily through antithesis to highlight irony and literal imagery, in order to exemplify the chaos and psychological trauma of war plaguing soldiers in the Middle East. Kusserow's poetry, on the other hand, works through metaphor and symbolism in order to emphasize the dehumanizing and destructive effects of the Second Sudanese Civil War on the lost boys of South Sudan. Furthermore, while Turner presents these ideas through the perspective of a war survivor, Kusserow presents them through the perspective of victims. These prospects serve to indicate that the costs of war are great and truly tragic for both sides. There will be victims who will die and survivors who will forever suffer from the psychological trauma they have suffered.