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The Invasion Handbook
The first installment of Paulin's ambitious new epic poem about World War II
No matter the Führer is uncultured
he has Heidegger says
such beautiful such sculptured
hands--but these are dangerous days
and Röhm is cultic now is Hitler's
righthand man
so might not the philosopher
be talking in riddles
like one of our ancient warriors?
--from "The Night of the Long Knives"
The Invasion Handbook opens with the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919, which excluded Germany from the community of nations, and with the answering but ill-fated attempt of the Locarno Treaties of 1925 to restore the torn fabric of Europe. It evokes Weimar culture, Hitler's rise to power, and the beginnings of the persecution of the Jews. The poem is a triumph of technique, a simultaneous vision that proceeds by quotation and collage, catalogue and caption, prose as well as verse--a myriad staging of historical realities through the poet's intense and bitter scrutiny of the particulars of time and place. It affirms the struggle and the memory of a generation upon whom the doors of living memory are now closing and it extends concerns which have long haunted Tom Paulin's the relation of art to war and to questions of national identity, the search for peace and for a shared civic culture.
No matter the Führer is uncultured
he has Heidegger says
such beautiful such sculptured
hands--but these are dangerous days
and Röhm is cultic now is Hitler's
righthand man
so might not the philosopher
be talking in riddles
like one of our ancient warriors?
--from "The Night of the Long Knives"
The Invasion Handbook opens with the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919, which excluded Germany from the community of nations, and with the answering but ill-fated attempt of the Locarno Treaties of 1925 to restore the torn fabric of Europe. It evokes Weimar culture, Hitler's rise to power, and the beginnings of the persecution of the Jews. The poem is a triumph of technique, a simultaneous vision that proceeds by quotation and collage, catalogue and caption, prose as well as verse--a myriad staging of historical realities through the poet's intense and bitter scrutiny of the particulars of time and place. It affirms the struggle and the memory of a generation upon whom the doors of living memory are now closing and it extends concerns which have long haunted Tom Paulin's the relation of art to war and to questions of national identity, the search for peace and for a shared civic culture.
- GenresPoetry
208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2002
2 people are currently reading
14 people want to read
About the author
Tom Paulin
75 books7 followersTom (Thomas Neilson) Paulin is a poet, critic and playwright. He was raised in Belfast in Northern Ireland where his father was the headmaster of a grammar school, and his mother was a doctor. He was educated at Hull University and Lincoln College, Oxford.
He lectured in English at the University of Nottingham from 1972 until 1989, and was Reader in Poetry from 1989 until 1994. He was a director of Field Day Theatre Company in Derry, Northern Ireland. He has also taught at the University of Virginia and was Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Reading. He is now G. M. Young Lecturer in English at Hertford College, Oxford. He is a well-known broadcaster and a regular member of the panel for the BBC Television arts programme 'Newsnight Review'.
Much of his early poetry reflects the political situation in Northern Ireland and the sectarian violence which has beset the province since the late 1960s. His collections include A State of Justice (1977), winner of a Somerset Maugham Award; The Strange Museum (1980), which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize; Liberty Tree (1983) and the acclaimed Fivemiletown (1987), which explores Northern Irish Protestant culture and identities. Later collections include Walking a Line (1994) and The Wind Dog (1999), which was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. The Invasion Handbook (2002) is the first instalment of an epic poem about the Second World War. His latest collection is The Road to Inver: Translations, Versions and Imitations 1975-2003 (2004), which brings together work from four decades.
His non-fiction includes Ireland and the English Crisis (1984), Minotaur: Poetry and the Nation State (1992), The Day-Star of Liberty: William Hazlitt's Radical Style (1998), a critical study of the nineteenth-century essayist and radical, and (with Amit Chaudhuri), D. H. Lawrence and "Difference": The Poetry of the Present (2003), a study exploring Lawrence's position as a 'foreigner' in the English canon.
Tom Paulin is editor of The Faber Book of Political Verse (1986) and The Faber Book of Vernacular Poetry (1990). His plays include The Riot Act: A Version of Sophocles' Antigone, which toured Ireland in 1984, and All the Way to the Empire Room which was broadcast by the BBC in 1994. His latest book is The Secret Life of Poems (2007).
Tom Paulin lives in Oxford with his wife and two sons.
He lectured in English at the University of Nottingham from 1972 until 1989, and was Reader in Poetry from 1989 until 1994. He was a director of Field Day Theatre Company in Derry, Northern Ireland. He has also taught at the University of Virginia and was Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Reading. He is now G. M. Young Lecturer in English at Hertford College, Oxford. He is a well-known broadcaster and a regular member of the panel for the BBC Television arts programme 'Newsnight Review'.
Much of his early poetry reflects the political situation in Northern Ireland and the sectarian violence which has beset the province since the late 1960s. His collections include A State of Justice (1977), winner of a Somerset Maugham Award; The Strange Museum (1980), which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize; Liberty Tree (1983) and the acclaimed Fivemiletown (1987), which explores Northern Irish Protestant culture and identities. Later collections include Walking a Line (1994) and The Wind Dog (1999), which was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. The Invasion Handbook (2002) is the first instalment of an epic poem about the Second World War. His latest collection is The Road to Inver: Translations, Versions and Imitations 1975-2003 (2004), which brings together work from four decades.
His non-fiction includes Ireland and the English Crisis (1984), Minotaur: Poetry and the Nation State (1992), The Day-Star of Liberty: William Hazlitt's Radical Style (1998), a critical study of the nineteenth-century essayist and radical, and (with Amit Chaudhuri), D. H. Lawrence and "Difference": The Poetry of the Present (2003), a study exploring Lawrence's position as a 'foreigner' in the English canon.
Tom Paulin is editor of The Faber Book of Political Verse (1986) and The Faber Book of Vernacular Poetry (1990). His plays include The Riot Act: A Version of Sophocles' Antigone, which toured Ireland in 1984, and All the Way to the Empire Room which was broadcast by the BBC in 1994. His latest book is The Secret Life of Poems (2007).
Tom Paulin lives in Oxford with his wife and two sons.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 19, 2014
An ambitious and, in many ways, impressive book, Tom Paulin's take on the origins of the Second World War is an intellectual and technical master work. Using poetry and prose, as well as literary and visual collage, quotation, catalogue and repetition, he builds up a sense of the beginnings of war as well as an interpretation of the known facts. It is the accumulation of images, stagings and contemplations that works best, although there are some fine individual elements to it. The level of erudition is such that I often felt I was missing out because my historical knowledge of the inter-war period is not as detailed as Paulin's. For those who know their history in depth, I am sure there are deeper levels to this work than I was able to mine.
This is a book of the head, rather than the heart, or at least, it was for me.
This is a book of the head, rather than the heart, or at least, it was for me.
October 12, 2008
"History lesson this - this heaven's cope
dome or belljar that contains
the whole mess - it's less
than a whole but it has a pattern
like an architect's drawing
- an explosion peaked
an unfinished scribbled
gothic Rotunda"
-from The Attack in the West
this, to me, is outstanding poetry. it workes like a matryoshka doll, uncovering stories within stories about the road between the two world wars. paulin takes the idea of revisionist history to a literary level, rescinding and rethinking his diction as he writes. smart and heartbreaking.
dome or belljar that contains
the whole mess - it's less
than a whole but it has a pattern
like an architect's drawing
- an explosion peaked
an unfinished scribbled
gothic Rotunda"
-from The Attack in the West
this, to me, is outstanding poetry. it workes like a matryoshka doll, uncovering stories within stories about the road between the two world wars. paulin takes the idea of revisionist history to a literary level, rescinding and rethinking his diction as he writes. smart and heartbreaking.
April 20, 2012
I kept wanting this to be Fivemiletown, but it wasn't, and by the time I got into it, I loved this. Paulin looks at World War II and the lead up to it, but sometimes (always) his poetry is very, very uncomfortable.
It's also beautiful:
Judas and the Word
are stalking each other
through this scroggy town
where every line has three stresses
and only the one word dark
and
- I guess they're always sad trees
their bark's flakthin like skin
and for all I know
they share its pallor with the refugees
It's also beautiful:
Judas and the Word
are stalking each other
through this scroggy town
where every line has three stresses
and only the one word dark
and
- I guess they're always sad trees
their bark's flakthin like skin
and for all I know
they share its pallor with the refugees
September 18, 2017
A long form poem that traces the history of the end of The Great War (latterly WW1)
Through the political machinations of the 20's & 30's to the outbreak of WW2. It brings you close the the key players and decisions that brought Europe and the world to what in hind-sight seemed inevitable but was never so clear cut in reality. A great lesson in politics and history and the impact on all our lives. Stay vigilant seems to be Paulin's message.
Through the political machinations of the 20's & 30's to the outbreak of WW2. It brings you close the the key players and decisions that brought Europe and the world to what in hind-sight seemed inevitable but was never so clear cut in reality. A great lesson in politics and history and the impact on all our lives. Stay vigilant seems to be Paulin's message.
November 21, 2014
I'm intrigued by how he has written such a collection of poems that sort of narrates World War II from such varying angles.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews