Imagine a random pole is taken on the streets of Nashville as well as Chicago and the corners of Los Angeles. People are asked to describe a snake. How often would participants respond with adjectives such as warm, cute, or soft? The likelihood of someone denoting a slithering, often venomous creature in this manner is similar to the chances of someone associating babies with bank robbers. Neither connotation would be common, if present at all. For this reason Philip Levine's poem 'Baby Villon' draws immediate attention. His purposely juxtaposed title sets a dismal tone for the piece, which goes on to reveal the story of a boy forced out of childhood and into war.
The poem's first stanza introduces a traveler who faces discrimination no matter where he stays. "In Bangkok he's robbed because he's white; in London because he's black". Obvious confusion of race demonstrates the prejudice of native people, who are often resistant to foreign soldiers invading their land. Being 'robbed' doesn't have to relate to loss of monetary value. Onlookers could be stripping the person of his sensitivity, his empathy, his humanity. Lines 7 and 8 of the second stanza help to draw this conclusion by stating "...There's no passion in his voice, no anger in the flat brown eyes flecked with blood." The speaker's use of alliteration between 'flat' and 'flecked' alerts the reader of the signifigance of understanding this person's emotional state.
Imagery in the fourth stanza affirms all assumptions that the 'he' in the poem has had encounters of violence. A bakery, usually a place of warmth and sweet treats, is described as having it's windows "smashed and the fresh bread dusted with glass". This is presented as a memory being told by the character of the poem to the speaker. The warrior ends his reminiscing with words of advice "...Never disparage the stiff bristles that guard the head of the fighter." A phrase that could be interpreted to warn the speaker to always keep distance, especially mentally, from those closest to him. Such a defensive outlook would be reasonable from the mouth of someone who has witnessed death and the lack of integrity many men have right before they die.
In the final two stanzas the reader becomes aware not only of the soldier's shockingly young age, but also of his fatal condition. The speaker explains that this is the "first and last visit" between him and the other boy, revealed as youthful through his physical demeanor of weighing only "116 pounds [at], five feet two, [and] no bigger than a girl". With everything that this young man has witnessed his death could be a literal one of physical illness or a metaphorical death, where the boy has lost his innocence and can no longer spend time with people his own age for lack of ability to relate with them. The second theory weighs heavier on the reader when the speaker explains this boy is "[him]self made otherwise by all his pain".
