Lyr Add: War poetry

Subject: RE: BS: GAS! GAS!
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 07 Oct 01 - 10:46 AM

Ali,

Seigfried Sasson was more in the 'Wilfred Owen' vein...

Youre thinking of Rupert Brooke, with the 'The Soldier', which is where the line "some corner of a foreign field that is forever England" comes from.

If I remember correctly, the 'jingo-ism' of Brooke's poetry seemed to go when his son was killed in action, part-way through the War.

Subject: RE: BS: GAS! GAS!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Oct 01 - 10:41 AM

Sassoon seved and was decorated (MC ?) for bravery. He later threw away his medal. His Memoirs of an Infantry Officer compare with Graves' Goodbye To All That.

Subject: Lyr Add: ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH (Wilfred Owen)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Oct 01 - 10:36 AM

ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH
(Wilfred Owen)

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them from prayers or bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of silent minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.

Subject: RE: BS: GAS! GAS!
From: AliUK
Date: 07 Oct 01 - 10:23 AM

Thanks GUEST for correcting my misassumption. Though my admiration of Owen is purely personal, I have read the other poets that have been mentioned and MacCrae is also a favourite of mine. Sassoon wrote some wonderfully florid poetry, and his line "...this is some corner of a foreign field that is forever England."is one of the most quoted lines ever. Unfortunately his "jingoism"got in the way of his poetry, and even he acknowledged Owen as a contemporary influence. I shall probably be corrected on this, but I don't think Sassoon ever served in battle, as Owen did, it is the starkness and reality of Owen's poetry that always attracted me to it. I'm fairly sure that the story about how Owen's parents received news of their son's death is apocryphal...but I don't care because it gives the proper cachet to one of the twentieth centuries most important english-speaking poets.

Subject: RE: BS: GAS! GAS!
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Oct 01 - 07:55 AM

Owen died from a burst of German machine gun fire while leading his men across the Cambre canal, 4th November 1918. The church bells were ringing to celebrate the end of the war on 11th Nov. in Oswestry, Shropshire, when the front door bell rang at his parents home, they opened the door to receive the telegram informing them of their son's death. IMO dulce et decorum est was "the" poem of that war, but that is not to denigrate the works of Brooke, Sassoon, or Graves, it's just my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: GAS! GAS!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Oct 01 - 06:42 AM

Thanks Tone, it still raises a shiver and a lump.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: GAS! GAS!
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 07 Oct 01 - 05:16 AM

Ali, I almost passed this thread by because of the title, but I'm glad I didn't. I read this poem years ago, and thank you for refreshing my memory. It has the same effect as Dalton Trumbo's book "Johnny Got His Gun", but distilled to a heartache.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: Lyr Add: IN FLANDERS FIELDS (John McCrae)
From: Tone d' F
Date: 07 Oct 01 - 04:09 AM

My father often quoted poetry In Flanders Field was one of his favourites

IN FLANDERS FIELDS

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Subject: RE: BS: GAS! GAS!
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Oct 01 - 03:44 AM

If you think Wilfred Owen was the most important war poet, you've missed a whole chunk of them out. Sigfreid Sassoon wrote one or two complete and utter stunners.

My favourite will always be 'In Flanders Fields' by Canadian John MaCrae. It's the one that launched the poppy as the rememberance flower, from the first and last verses: "In Flanders fields the poppies blow between the crosses, row on row." and "If ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields."

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: GAS! GAS!
From: Gypsy
Date: 06 Oct 01 - 11:49 PM

Oh, my Lord......and i thought that i was couth enough to have read most of the important poetry. Thank you for posting........

Subject: RE: BS: GAS! GAS!
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Oct 01 - 11:37 PM

Thank you, AliUK.

Subject: RE: BS: GAS! GAS!
From: AliUK
Date: 06 Oct 01 - 09:28 PM

yup, from effects of the gas that he had been bombarded by. And thanks spaw, your praise is humbly accepted. I was recently rereading Owen's poems and this one as always stuck out like a sore thumb(if you can excuse the expression).

Subject: RE: BS: GAS! GAS!
From: Amergin
Date: 06 Oct 01 - 09:21 PM

I have always loved this poem....the images it always evoked in my head...horrifying...didn't he die near the end of the war?

Subject: RE: BS: GAS! GAS!
From: catspaw49
Date: 06 Oct 01 - 09:15 PM

The comments I was prepared to make upon reading the thread title seem to be choked off by the lump in my throat................well posted Alistair, well posted.

Spaw

Subject: Lyr Add: DULCE ET DECORUM EST (Wilfred Owen)
From: AliUK
Date: 06 Oct 01 - 09:09 PM

In these times I just thought that I would post this poem by the worlds greatest dead poet. It is a poem of the first world war that has haunted me ever since I first heard it read by my English lit teacher in high school. Wilfred Owen was by far the greatest war poet that ever existed and his poems are as much anti as anything else. Apart from the fact that he lived the horror of the trenches, his poetry is resonant and beautiful in it's starkness. Here goes apologies if it doesn't come out right but I'm sure you'll get the picture:

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! -- An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime. --
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, --
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.