Poem w/ connection to folk singer

Subject: Poem w/ connection to folk singer
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 16 Sep 08 - 06:38 PM

This poem, nearly 100 years old, has connection to a folk music legend. If you know the poet, you'll know the legend. What is the connection? Also, this poem is mentioned in which movie, a political thriller, from about fifteen years ago?

"I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple blossoms fill the air--
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

"It may be he shall take my hand,
And lead me into his dark land,
And close my eyes and quench my breath--
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow flowers appear.

"God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear . . .
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year;
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous."

Answers, if there are responses, in a couple of days.

JotSC

Subject: RE: Poem w/ connection to folk singer
From: Cool Beans
Date: 16 Sep 08 - 06:42 PM

The poet is Alan Seeger, Pete Seeger's uncle (Charles Seeger's brother). Don't know the movie, though.

Subject: RE: Poem w/ connection to folk singer
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 16 Sep 08 - 07:14 PM

Damn! That was quick! But at least you left something. :>/

Subject: RE: Poem w/ connection to folk singer
From: Ref
Date: 16 Sep 08 - 09:55 PM

The film is "In The Line Of Fire" in which the line is quoted by John Malkovich. The legend (true) is that the poem wasn't published until after Seeger's death in battle. He was serving in the Foreign Legion, and died cheering on his comrades after he'd been mortally wounded.

Subject: RE: Poem w/ connection to folk singer
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 12:54 AM

Ref, you got the second part. Seeger died in 1916, his poems collected and published postumously in 1917.
WWI was a tough on poets. Joyce Kilmer ("Trees") also was killed in battle. Maybe a few others.

Subject: RE: Poem w/ connection to folk singer
From: Santa
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 11:00 AM

Wilfred Owen
Rupert Brooke

Subject: RE: Poem w/ connection to folk singer
From: Ref
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 09:23 PM

Sad times, and more sadly forgotten. Hundreds of thousands of English, French, German, and, yes, Americans dead for no good reason at all but the death twitches of the old empires.

Subject: RE: Poem w/ connection to folk singer
From: Rowan
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 01:07 AM

From memory, Rupert Brooke died while 'in uniform' but not 'in battle', apparently from an infected mosquito bite. Not that it matters much; he still ended up dead.

And many other poets were 'changed' by WWI, even if they survived beyond 1918; Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves are two that come to mind.

Subject: RE: Poem w/ connection to folk singer
From: GUEST,Owlett
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 08:24 AM

Edward Thomas

Subject: RE: Poem w/ connection to folk singer
From: Ythanside
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 12:07 PM

John Masefield and Robert William Service, both Red Cross men who served during WW1.