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War Poetry?


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Hi All

 

Wondering if anyone else has any favourite war poets/poetry? I remember studying these quite a bit at GCSE, and my grandfather, an RAF veteran, was also really fond of these...

 

Wilfred Owen - Anthem for doomed youth

Dulce et decorum est

Disabled

 

Yeats - An Irishman forsees his death

 

:lol:

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In Flander's Field by John McCrae

 

and I love this one

 

NAMING OF PARTS by Henry Reed

 

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,

We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,

We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,

To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica

Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,

And to-day we have naming of parts.

 

This is the lower sling swivel. And this

Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,

When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,

Which in your case you have not got. The branches

Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,

Which in our case we have not got.

 

This is the safety-catch, which is always released

With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me

See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy

If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms

Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see

Any of them using their finger.

 

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this

Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it

Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this

Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards

The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:

They call it easing the Spring.

 

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy

If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,

And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,

Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom

Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,

For to-day we have naming of parts.

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I thought i would post one of my favourites, which i mentioned above. It is about the whole nature vs mankind concept, which i love.

 

There Will Come Soft Rains

Sara Teasdale

 

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,

And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

 

And frogs in the pool singing at night,

And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

 

Robins will wear their feathery fire,

Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

 

And not one will know of the war, not one

Will care at last when it is done.

 

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,

If mankind perished utterly;

 

And Spring herself when she woke at dawn

Would scarcely know that we were gone.

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  • 9 months later...
  • 2 years later...

Wilfred Owen's poems are very good, I've always liked them.

I also like this one, from Frederic Manning:

 

 

 

Grotesque

 

 

These are the damned circles Dante trod,

Terrible in hopelessness,

But even skulls have their humour,

An eyeless and sardonic mockery:

 

And we,

Sitting with streaming eyes in the acrid smoke,

That murks our foul, damp billet,

Chant bitterly, with raucous voices

As a choir of frogs

In hideous irony, our patriotic songs.

Edited by Amelie
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  • 3 months later...

I'm doing the Great War Poets as part of my dissertation :)

 

I, personally, love everything written by Owen after his meeting with Sassoon. Exposure made me cry when I first read it. I love mental cases, strange meeting, apologia pro poemate meo, and the last laugh.

Sassoon never really felt like a poet to me, he was a soldier and a great mind, but he never achieved what Owen did in his poetry. Saying that, counter attack is pretty decent.

 

I'm not very well versed in the other war poets, but I'd like to be. The world wars are a period in history that really fascinates me.

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