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Poets of World War II:
This anthology brings together 120 poems about World War II by sixty-two American poets, chosen, as editor Harvey Shapiro writes in his introduction, “with a to demonstrate that the American poets of this war produced a body of work that has not yet been recognized for its clean and powerful eloquence.” The poets are generally unsentimental, ironic, and often astonished by what they have experienced, and their insights still have the power to shake up our perceptions of that war and of war in general.
Most of the poets included in the volume served in the armed forces; some—Louis Simpson, Anthony Hecht, Kenneth Koch—saw combat in the infantry, while others—James Dickey, Howard Nemerov, Richard Hugo, John Ciardi—fought in the air. Also poets who experienced the war as civilians, including Robinson Jeffers, Marianne Moore, and Conrad Aiken; poems by conscientious objectors and draft resisters, including William Stafford and Robert Lowell; and an elegy by James Tate for his father, who was killed in action when Tate was an infant.
About the American Poets Project
Elegantly designed in compact editions, printed on acid-free paper, and textually authoritative, the American Poets Project makes available the full range of the American poetic accomplishment, selected and introduced by today’s most discerning poets and critics.
Most of the poets included in the volume served in the armed forces; some—Louis Simpson, Anthony Hecht, Kenneth Koch—saw combat in the infantry, while others—James Dickey, Howard Nemerov, Richard Hugo, John Ciardi—fought in the air. Also poets who experienced the war as civilians, including Robinson Jeffers, Marianne Moore, and Conrad Aiken; poems by conscientious objectors and draft resisters, including William Stafford and Robert Lowell; and an elegy by James Tate for his father, who was killed in action when Tate was an infant.
About the American Poets Project
Elegantly designed in compact editions, printed on acid-free paper, and textually authoritative, the American Poets Project makes available the full range of the American poetic accomplishment, selected and introduced by today’s most discerning poets and critics.
262 pages, Hardcover
First published January 27, 2003
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About the author
Harvey Shapiro
38 books3 followersHarvey Shapiro (January 27, 1924 – January 7, 2013) was an American poet and editor of The New York Times. He wrote a dozen books of poetry from 1953 to 2006, writing in epigrammatic style about things in his everyday life. As an editor, he was always affiliated with The New York Times in some capacity, mainly in the magazine and book reviews, from 1957 to 2005.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 16 reviews
March 5, 2022
I went into this with very high hopes as I greatly enjoyed reading WW1 poetry anthologies. The poems and the formatting of the book were not very good in my opinion. I've included some poems that I really liked at the end of this review.
I enjoyed the unity and different themes explored in the WW1 poems. In particular, The Winter of the World: Poems of the Great War divided its poems into the years and gave a short context/history for each year. I thought this was essential to the understanding of the poems presented. This book had none of it. I'm disappointed in the way Harvey Shapiro formatted his anthology, as he is a poet (and writes quite well might I add)! The poems were presented in order of the author's birthdays, from earliest (late 19th) to latest (1926). This really made no sense to me! Moreover, there were no dates associated with the poems. Especially for poems centred around historic events, I think dates are essential and allow the reader to understand the poem better.
In essence, my lesser enjoyment of WW2 poetry combined with the bad formatting of the anthology led me to not really enjoy my experience. Nonetheless, it is still interesting to see how attitudes towards the war changed and how the styles of war-time poetry evolved.
- Rifle Range: Louisiana, Charles E. Butler
- Elegy for a Cave Full of Bones, John Ciardi
- Remembering That Island, Thomas McGrath
- Memorial, William Bronk
- A Spring Memorandum: Fort Knox, Robert Duncan
- World War II, Edward Field
I enjoyed the unity and different themes explored in the WW1 poems. In particular, The Winter of the World: Poems of the Great War divided its poems into the years and gave a short context/history for each year. I thought this was essential to the understanding of the poems presented. This book had none of it. I'm disappointed in the way Harvey Shapiro formatted his anthology, as he is a poet (and writes quite well might I add)! The poems were presented in order of the author's birthdays, from earliest (late 19th) to latest (1926). This really made no sense to me! Moreover, there were no dates associated with the poems. Especially for poems centred around historic events, I think dates are essential and allow the reader to understand the poem better.
In essence, my lesser enjoyment of WW2 poetry combined with the bad formatting of the anthology led me to not really enjoy my experience. Nonetheless, it is still interesting to see how attitudes towards the war changed and how the styles of war-time poetry evolved.
- Rifle Range: Louisiana, Charles E. Butler
- Elegy for a Cave Full of Bones, John Ciardi
- Remembering That Island, Thomas McGrath
- Memorial, William Bronk
- A Spring Memorandum: Fort Knox, Robert Duncan
- World War II, Edward Field
February 16, 2019
This is a nice overview of World War II poets with an informative introduction by the editor. If you are more familiar with World War I poetry as I am, then this is a good book to peruse. Obviously most of the poets are male, but Shapiro does include some female poets along with a lovely poem at the end by James Tate who lost his father to the war when he was 5 months old.
August 8, 2017
I was very disappointed by this read. I am certainly no stranger to reading about World War II, nor to reading books of poetry [1]. Yet there is a great disconnect in this book between my appreciation of the poetry--some of which is quite good--and my lack of appreciation of the underlying sentiment and the tone of the editor that makes sense of it. A big part of that disconnect has to do with the matter of patriotism. At least among the veterans I know, there is a great deal of patriotic pride about this particular war, and that is certainly the case in the collective memory. Yet one will search this collection in vain for the sort of patriotism that a genuine patriot would be proud of. You can find plenty of leftist carping and even some fascist poetry courtesy of Ezra Pound. One can find people tweaking America about racism and plenty of pacifist poetry--including some from William Stafford, whose poetry I actually like--but one will search in vain for a genuine sense of patriotism here, and that is definitely something that this book is missing. One cannot imagine that there was a lack of good patriotic poetry, but one can easily imagine a leftist poet having a hard time honoring it properly in a book like this one.
The contents of this book are organized like the rest of the series I am familiar with, in chronological order by the birthdate of the poet. Although this book purports to have only American poets, there are some fudges here that work out for the best. For example, British-born W.H. Auden, whose September 1, 1939 is a great poem, and Russian-born Nabokov are represented here, and both have fine work. Despite the wide breadth of poets represented, most of them who come from leftist political perspectives that are very skeptical and cynical, a few poets manage to have a few poems shown here, like Lincoln Kirstein, Karl Shapiro, Randall Jarrell, John Ciardi, Noward Nemerov, and Louis Simpson. Overall, though, despite the power of World War II this collection feels more than a little bit slight. Because it was chosen with such an obvious and such a negative political bias, the poems do not hit the mark. This is, on the whole, as undistinguished a collection of poems that one can imagine. The collection of my childhood poems would have had more highs than this book does, sadly, and probably not nearly as many lows.
Ultimately, this book is a demonstration that among the literati of the United States, the rot and corruption that would engulf the larger culture in the 1960's and 1970's was already present here. A literary elite that could not be inspired to fight bravely and nobly by being opposed by such wicked men as Hitler and Japan's militaristic regime is a literary elite that is rapidly losing any kind of moral courage whatsoever. To be sure, a great many of the poets reflect negatively on the way that death came from above and there was a remoteness from other troops and from one's enemies that certainly made warfare less romantic than the past, but all in all this is grim reading. The poets feel comfortable writing about anonymous death and the degradation of the body, and certainly on the racism of the South, but they lack the sort of moral vision that would make this work memorable or transcendent. Among the poet-critics of the war, few come off remotely well, perhaps best of all William Stafford, who at least stood by his principles of pacifism and showed himself willing to serve his time during the war at a labor camp rather than bloody his own hands. Compared to his noble willingness to sacrifice glory and honor in the eyes of others for his principles, the rest of these whiny critics come off rather poorly indeed, though perhaps none so poorly as the editor of this work.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
The contents of this book are organized like the rest of the series I am familiar with, in chronological order by the birthdate of the poet. Although this book purports to have only American poets, there are some fudges here that work out for the best. For example, British-born W.H. Auden, whose September 1, 1939 is a great poem, and Russian-born Nabokov are represented here, and both have fine work. Despite the wide breadth of poets represented, most of them who come from leftist political perspectives that are very skeptical and cynical, a few poets manage to have a few poems shown here, like Lincoln Kirstein, Karl Shapiro, Randall Jarrell, John Ciardi, Noward Nemerov, and Louis Simpson. Overall, though, despite the power of World War II this collection feels more than a little bit slight. Because it was chosen with such an obvious and such a negative political bias, the poems do not hit the mark. This is, on the whole, as undistinguished a collection of poems that one can imagine. The collection of my childhood poems would have had more highs than this book does, sadly, and probably not nearly as many lows.
Ultimately, this book is a demonstration that among the literati of the United States, the rot and corruption that would engulf the larger culture in the 1960's and 1970's was already present here. A literary elite that could not be inspired to fight bravely and nobly by being opposed by such wicked men as Hitler and Japan's militaristic regime is a literary elite that is rapidly losing any kind of moral courage whatsoever. To be sure, a great many of the poets reflect negatively on the way that death came from above and there was a remoteness from other troops and from one's enemies that certainly made warfare less romantic than the past, but all in all this is grim reading. The poets feel comfortable writing about anonymous death and the degradation of the body, and certainly on the racism of the South, but they lack the sort of moral vision that would make this work memorable or transcendent. Among the poet-critics of the war, few come off remotely well, perhaps best of all William Stafford, who at least stood by his principles of pacifism and showed himself willing to serve his time during the war at a labor camp rather than bloody his own hands. Compared to his noble willingness to sacrifice glory and honor in the eyes of others for his principles, the rest of these whiny critics come off rather poorly indeed, though perhaps none so poorly as the editor of this work.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
February 3, 2018
I read this not because I'm into wars or war poetry, but because while I've read plenty of WWI poetry, I've been pretty ignorant of that produced by WWII. For a 250-page anthology, I thought this was an excellent primer.
I supposed my ignorance of WWII poetry owed mostly to it having had less time to be canonized than WWI work. Having read this book, I believe that ignorance is due to another factor as well: the well-known poets of the First War were largely highly educated British officers who considered their kind to have become a brotherhood. Their poems are marked by a sense of brotherhood, piety, and patriotism that is lacking in this book. Its contributors are mostly American, mostly military, mostly enlisted.
Missing is the glory of "In Flanders Fields" -- these poems are more modern in style, and, as the editor notes, "This is not a book of celebration, unless it is to celebrate man's ability, indeed his compulsion, to turn terror into art." This art is beautiful, but modern in theme as well: the poems reflect the terror-inducing, fragmented, inchoate, blasphemous nature of the new Machine, which used (& uses) tools like airplanes and cinema to distance man from man and man from his actions.
Simone Weil claimed that war poems are about force: "that X that turns anybody who is subjected to it into a thing. Exercised to the limit, it turns man into a thing in the most literal sense: it makes a corpse out of him."
I'm going to go take the dog for a walk, exorcise the nightmares from my brain, thank God for my country & those who serve it, and pray for peace, a peace that can only come with His Coming. Until He returns, I'm thankful for poets like these, whose vision illuminates the dark road ahead, and reminds me to fight to remain human(e).
I supposed my ignorance of WWII poetry owed mostly to it having had less time to be canonized than WWI work. Having read this book, I believe that ignorance is due to another factor as well: the well-known poets of the First War were largely highly educated British officers who considered their kind to have become a brotherhood. Their poems are marked by a sense of brotherhood, piety, and patriotism that is lacking in this book. Its contributors are mostly American, mostly military, mostly enlisted.
Missing is the glory of "In Flanders Fields" -- these poems are more modern in style, and, as the editor notes, "This is not a book of celebration, unless it is to celebrate man's ability, indeed his compulsion, to turn terror into art." This art is beautiful, but modern in theme as well: the poems reflect the terror-inducing, fragmented, inchoate, blasphemous nature of the new Machine, which used (& uses) tools like airplanes and cinema to distance man from man and man from his actions.
Simone Weil claimed that war poems are about force: "that X that turns anybody who is subjected to it into a thing. Exercised to the limit, it turns man into a thing in the most literal sense: it makes a corpse out of him."
I'm going to go take the dog for a walk, exorcise the nightmares from my brain, thank God for my country & those who serve it, and pray for peace, a peace that can only come with His Coming. Until He returns, I'm thankful for poets like these, whose vision illuminates the dark road ahead, and reminds me to fight to remain human(e).
May 14, 2022
Poets of World War II was written by Harvey Shapiro and it is an accumulation of different types of poems from World war II. It is part of the American Poets Project and its publisher is The Library of America. Most of the poems were about what soldiers in the war thought and felt because soldiers would record it in poetry. Some of the poems I did not like too much because there were some poems that were trying to force out a story to where it felt like it was not poetry. An example of this is “Portrait from the Infantry” where it felt like the poem was just told like a story. One thing that I did like about this collection of poems is that it included poems written by minority authors at this time like “The Blinding of Isaac Woodard” by WoodyGuthire where the author of the poem talks about his experiences after the War with a racist attack even though he served in the arm forces. Overall, I felt like most of the poems in this book were boring with no really interesting insights. There were a few poems that made the book worth reading (barley) like “The Blinding of Isaac Woodard”, “Negro Hero”, “Three American Women and a German Bayonet”, and lastly all poems written by Robert Fitzgerald.
November 2, 2016
This book creates a stark contrast between WWII and WWI poetry. Most of the poets who are included in this anthology were members of the military and that fact alone gives readers an emotional connection. Whereas WWI poetry was more patriotic and focused on bravery and honor, WWII poetry is heavy in the theme of death. The poets are blunt, realistic, and honest in their fears. Reading this poetry was akin to hearing stories from war veterans. It's moving in a way that is also terrifying.
May 2, 2021
i wish this collection had a better sense of organization and understanding inherent institualization oppression. i picked this paperback up because i found a ww2 poem by my grandpa, his work matches up greatly and showcases the era appropriately.
June 28, 2023
I love poetry. I am fascinated by World War II. So how could I not get into this collection.
I scratch my head wondering how this collection of poems could come off as so uninspired.
Looking at the aggregate rating here, I think others are asking the same question.
I scratch my head wondering how this collection of poems could come off as so uninspired.
Looking at the aggregate rating here, I think others are asking the same question.
December 21, 2017
Had to read this for class. It was okay, I'm not a big poem fan, but some of them I liked quite a bit.
March 28, 2018
Should be required reading by every person who advocates starting a war.
August 20, 2018
The second in a 31 book American Library series of American poetry volumes. Most poets in this anthology enlisted and served in WW2 as part of the ‘Greatest Generation’. For poetry readers, it’s a good survey of modern poetry and poets. For WW2 readers, the poetry gives a perspective and point of view often missing from novels, movies, and other writing from the period.
January 11, 2008
So far, I am blown away simply by Henry Shapiro's introduction to this book. He was in WWII and is also a poet, editor, etc. the premise of the book is that there are also many great WWII poets, but we just don't know about them and they write differently from the bitter Owen or sentimental Sassoon to name a couple. I want to read more books in this American Poets Project series now...
February 27, 2014
A great anthology of poets writing about world war 2--a broad range of poetic styles and sensibilities, from those who served to those who objected to those who watched from the home front. The range of voices reminded me of what those soldiers fought for.
April 5, 2017
This book is powerful, poignantly depicting the experiences of war-fighters and the populous suffering under a world war. The vivid flourishes in the prose, the compassion, the hatred—all present in these lines of verse are all encompassing of a world in turmoil, under the burden of historic calamity. Moving!
April 13, 2017
Had to read this for a literature class. Offered perspectives of those involved with WWII
Displaying 1 - 15 of 16 reviews