The History Book Club discussion

This is a thread for poetry of World War I.

There is a generalized thread for war poetry in the military folder but this is a thread to place some additional poetry of the World War I time period.

John Keegan

To Any Dead Soldier - Tribute to Siegfied Sassoon:

http://www.WW1Photos.com/ToAnyDeadOff...

The General By Siegfried Sassoon

http://www.WW1Photos.com/TheGeneral.html

Dulce et Decorum Est By Wilfred Owen

http://www.WW1Photos.com/Dulce_et_Dec...

Of course we must include the famous In Flanders Field by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/flan...

Yes, of course...one of the most memorable.

I purchased a copy of this book today as it seems to offer some new or lesser known poetry from WW1:


by Vivien Noakes
Description:
There are many anthologies of poetry of the First World War, reflecting the huge interest there is in this subject, but "Voices of Silence" is unlike any of them. The poetry of the First World War has determined our perception of the war itself. Yet, this perception is based on the interpretation of a few poets who have become household names - writers such as Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Isaac Rosenberg. Less literary but equally important, the poetry gathered together in this volume has been drawn from old newspapers and journals, trench and hospital magazines, individual volumes of verse, gift books, postcards, and an illicit manuscript magazine put together by conscientious objectors. For the first time, the huge body of rich, exciting and often deeply moving work that complements the established literary canon has been revived. It adds a new dimension to our perception of the immediate response to war - not least in the soldiers' recurring and important use of humour. Written by the men for the men, these verses reflect an aspect of the national character which contributes to our understanding of how they were able to endure.

Elizabeth S wrote: "Of course we must include the famous In Flanders Field by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/flan..."

I agree Elizabeth, a very moving poem written when Dr. McCrae witnessed a good friend's death at the second battle of Ypres. Here is a short volume of his other poems but In Flanders Field gained him a place in history.



by John McCrae

One verse from a Siegfried Sassoon poem appears on pg. 267 in “With the Old Breed”. I can see why author E. B. Sledge chose to include the words in his book.

"You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go."

WWI Marine Corps Sgt. John Culnan fought in the historic battle of Belleau Wood with the 49th Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Regiment, 4th Brigade, 2nd Division and authored a book in 1927 titled:“Semper Fidelis (ever faithful): A ballad of the U.S. Marines”. I hope to someday view the contents of this rare book.
Collected Poems, 1908-1956 With the Old Breed at Peleilu and Okinawa

Thanks, Mark. With the citation, if you have a book cover, you don't need a title link. You do need author:

Siegfried Sassoon

Eugene B. Sledge

The moving last stanza from Into Battle by Julian Grenfell. I think the poem is in this book which has no book cover available. Julian Grenfell, Soldier &Amp; Poet: Letters And Diaries, 1910 1915

The thundering line of battle stands,
And in the air death moans and sings;
But Day shall clasp him with strong hands,
And Night shall fold him in soft wings.

Bryan, thanks I'll do better with the "preview".

The first three lines of this poem are the ones that most people remember....below is the complete text.


The Soldier - Rupert Brook (1887-1915)

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Great poem Jill.

The poetry of the Great War is extremely moving, isn't it? And it doesn't appear that WWII generated as much verse......or am I just not aware of it?

I think the poety of the Great War just pushed WW2's poety into the back ground.

It also might have something to do with the fact that so many of the young and talented poets lost their lives in the Great War.

Very true!

Do you find that the poetry from the Great War resonates more with you though than later poetry? I've never forgotten the poem; "Anthem for Doomed Youth" which I learnt by heart in college.


What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
- Only the monstruous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor 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 patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Aussie Rick thanks for posting 'Anthem of Doomed Youth' like you its one of those poems I will always remember.
Many years ago one of the topics I studied for English Lit. 0 level was the poetry and war poets of WW1. Even at 15 they made a great impression on me. Through the images brought to life in the words of these poems the futility and horrific consequences of war really hit home.

Oxford uni has a comprehensive online digital archive of first world war poetry and poets

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/

Two autobiography's from the time and related to the literature and poetry are Vera Brittains 'Testament to youth' and Robert Graves 'Goodbye to all that' I found both those books to be memorable and really worth the effort to read to get the feel of the era and how it effected the young people of that time. Although both Brittain and Graves came from very Middle Class English backgrounds so may not be representative of the experience of the working class of the time.

by Vera Brittain

by Robert Graves

Hi Karen, thanks for the link to the Oxford University site, some great stuff there!

Have you tried the virtual exhibition they have embedded in secondlife, interesting although I find I'm very clumsy moving my avatar around the trenches which makes accessing some of the material difficult/awkward.

Shropshire Lad


On the idle hill of summer,
Sleepy with the flow of streams,
Far I hear the distant drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams.
Far and near and low and louder
On the roads of earth go by,
Dear to friends and food for powder,
Soldiers marching, all to die.

A.E. Housman

This poem by Wilfred Owen is one of my favorites:

Apologia Pro Poemate Meo

I, too, saw God through mud--
The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled.
War brought more glory to their eyes than blood,
And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.

Merry it was to laugh there--
Where death becomes absurd and life absurder.
For power was on us as we slashed bones bare
Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder.

I, too, have dropped off fear--
Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon,
And sailed my spirit surging, light and clear,
Past the entanglement where hopes lie strewn;

And witnessed exhultation--
Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl,
Shine and lift up with passion of oblation,
Seraphic for an hour, though they were foul.

I have made fellowships--
Untold of happy lovers in old song.
For love is not the binding of fair lips
With the soft silk of eyes that look and long.

By joy, whose ribbon slips,--
But wound with war's hard wire whose stakes are strong;
Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips;
Knit in the welding of the rifle-thong.

I have perceived much beauty
In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight;
Heard music in the silentness of duty;
Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate.

Nevertheless, except you share
With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell,
Whose world is but a trembling of a flare
And heaven but a highway for a shell,

You shall not hear their mirth:
You shall not come to think them well content
By any jest of mine. These men are worth
Your tears: You are not worth their merriment.

Have you read "Regeneration," by Pat Barker? It's the first of her trilogy of novels that take place during World War I. Wilfred Owen is a character in the novel. It is a powerful book.

Jodie
Pat Barker

The link below provides short biographies of the WWI poets and their poetry.

http://www.sonnets.org/wwi.htm

This is a little know poem by Wilfred Gibson (no link available) which is simple and very moving.


Back
They ask me where I've been,
And what I've done and seen.
But what can I reply
Who know it wasn't I,
But someone just like me,
Who went across the sea
And with my head and hands
Killed men in foreign lands...
Though I must bear the blame,
Because he bore my name.

That is such a sad poem

Strange Meetings: The Poets of the Great War

by Harry Ricketts (no photo)

Synopsis:

Strange Meetings provides a highly original account of the War Poets of 1914-1918, written through a series of actual encounters, or near-encounters, from Siegfried Sassoon's first, blushing meeting with Rupert Brooke over kidneys and bacon at Eddie Marsh's breakfasts before the war, through famous moments like Sassoon's encouragement of Owen when both are in hospital at the same time; on to the poignant meeting between Edward Thomas's widow and Ivor Gurney in 1932; and the last, strange lunch and 'longish talk' of Sassoon and David Jones in 1964, half a century after the great war began.

Among the other poets and writers we encounter are Vera Brittain, Roland Leighton, Robert Graves, Isaac Rosenberg, Robert Nichols and Edmund Blunden. Ricketts's unusual approach allows him to follow their relationships, marking their responses to each other's work and showing how these affected their own poetry - one potent strand, for example, is the profound influence of Brooke, both as a model to follow and a burden to reject. The stories become intensely personal and vivid - we come to know each of the poets, their family and intellectual backgrounds and their very different personalities. And while the accounts of individual lives achieve the imaginative vividness of a novel, they also give us an entirely fresh sense of Georgian poetry, conveying all the excitement and frustration of poetic creation, and demonstrating how the whole notion of what poetry should be 'about' became fractured and changed for ever by the terrible experiences of the war.

Some Desperate Glory: The First World War the Poets Knew

by Max Egremont (no photo)

Synopsis:

The hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of what many believed would be the war to end all wars is in 2014. And while World War I devastated Europe, it inspired profound poetry—words in which the atmosphere and landscape of battle are evoked perhaps more vividly than anywhere else.

The poets—many of whom were killed—show not only the war’s tragedy but also the hopes and disappointments of a generation of men. In Some Desperate Glory the historian and biographer Max Egremont gives us a transfiguring look at the life and work of this assemblage of poets. Wilfred Owen with his flaring genius; the intense, compassionate Siegfried Sassoon; the composer Ivor Gurney; Robert Graves, who would later spurn his war poems; the nature-loving Edward Thomas; the glamorous Fabian Socialist Rupert Brooke; and the shell-shocked Robert Nichols—all fought in the war, and their poetry is a bold act of creativity in the face of unprecedented destruction.

Some Desperate Gloryincludes a chronological anthology of the poets’ works, telling the story of the war not only through the lives of these writers but also through their art. This unique volume unites the poetry and the history of the war—so often treated separately—granting readers the pride, strife, and sorrow of the individual soldier’s experience coupled with a panoramic view of the war’s toll on an entire nation.

A collection of poetry from the Great War.

Up The Line To Death
by Brian Gardner (no photo)

Synopsis:

An anthology of the poetry of World War I, this collection is more concerned with the War than with poetry, and as such it is a book with a theme. There are 72 poets represented here - including Wilfred Owen - of whom 21 died in action. Many of the poems have notes and introductions.

Hugh Selwyn Mauberley [Part I], Parts IV and V
by Ezra Pound

IV.

These fought, in any case,
and some believing, pro domo, in any case ...

Some quick to arm,
some for adventure,
some from fear of weakness,
some from fear of censure,
some for love of slaughter, in imagination,
learning later ...

some in fear, learning love of slaughter;
Died some pro patria, non dulce non et decor ...

walked eye-deep in hell
believing in old men’s lies, then unbelieving
came home, home to a lie,
home to many deceits,
home to old lies and new infamy;

usury age-old and age-thick
and liars in public places.

Daring as never before, wastage as never before.
Young blood and high blood,
Fair cheeks, and fine bodies;

fortitude as never before

frankness as never before,
disillusions as never told in the old days,
hysterias, trench confessions,
laughter out of dead bellies.

V.

There died a myriad,
And of the best, among them,
For an old bitch gone in the teeth,
For a botched civilization.

Charm, smiling at the good mouth,
Quick eyes gone under earth’s lid,

For two gross of broken statues,
For a few thousand battered books.

Great add Jimmy

This is a collection of the greatest and most poignant poetry of WWI. Very moving and well worth reading.

Out of Battle: The Poetry of the Great War

by Jon Silkin (no photo)

Synopsis:

The poetry from the Great War is among the most powerful ever written in the English language. Unique for its immediacy and searing honesty, it has made a fundamental contribution to our understanding of and response to war and the suffering it creates. Widely acclaimed as an indispensable guide to the war poets and their work, Out of Battle explores in depth the variety of responses from Rupert Brook, Ford Madox Ford, Seigfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg and Edward Thomas to the events they witnessed. Other poets discussed are Hardy, Kipling, Charles Sorely, Ivor Gurney, Herbert Read, Richard Aldington and David Jones. For this second edition of Out of Battle, a substantial new preface has been added, together with an appendix on the unresolved problems concerning the Owen manuscripts. An updated bibliography provides useful guidance for further reading.

Thank you Jill

You are most welcome. The poetry of WWI is so poignant, especially when you realize that a whole generation of men were lost, many of them up and coming poets and authors.

Yes, there is so much more we can add here.

The Great War in Irish Poetry: W.B. Yeats to Michael Longley

by Fran Brearton(no photo)

Synopsis:

The impact of the First World War on the work of W.B. Yeats, Robert Graves, and Louis MacNeice in the period 1914-45, and on three contemporary Northern Irish poets, Derek Mahon, Seamus Heaney, and Michael Longley is examined here. The book's concern is to place their work, and memory of the Great War, in the context of Irish politics and culture in the 20th century. The historical background to Irish involvement in the Great War is explained, as are the ways in which issues raised in 1912-20 still reverberate in the politics of remembrance in Northern Ireland, particularly through such events as the Home Rule cause, the loss of the Titanic, the Battle of the Somme, the Easter Rising. While the Great War is perceived as central to English culture, and its literature holds a privileged position in the English literary canon, the centrality of the Great War to Irish writing has seldom been recognised. This book shows first, that despite complications in Irish domestic politics which led to the repression of memory of the Great War, Irish poets have been drawn throughout the century to the events and images of 1914-18.

A upcoming book:
Release date: December 1, 2015

Everything to Nothing: The Poetry of the Great War, Revolution and the Transformation of Europe

by Geert Buelens (no photo)

Synopsis:

The Great War is often referred to as “the literary war,” the war that saw both the birth of modernism and the precursors of futurism. During the first few months in Germany alone there were over a million poems of propaganda written. In this cultural history of the First World War, the conflict is seen the point of view of poets and writers from all over Europe, including Rupert Brooke, Alexander Blok, James Joyce, Fernando Pessoa, Andre Breton and Siegfried Sassoon.

Everything to Nothing is a transnational history of how nationalism and internationalism defined both the war itself and post-war dealings—revolutionary movements, wars for independence, civil wars, Versailles—and of how poets played a vital role in defining the stakes, ambitions and disappointments of the postwar Europe.

Thank you for the add

One of the great young WWI poets.

Rupert Brooke: A Biography

by Christopher Hassall (no photo)

Synopsis:

This biography reveals a man far more complex and actively involved in the movements of his time than has been inferred fronm the current image of the young Apollo. He emerges as a wit, a scholar deeply read, a devoted partisan of the Socialist movement, a focal point of more than one aspect of the anti-Victorian revolt, and the protagonist in a passionate misadventure which gives him almost tragic stature. The popular legend has not been 'exploded' so much as set in its human context of struggle, perplexity and suffering, and thereby given perspective and enhanced. In Yeats's words: 'There is always a living face behind the mask.'

Ghosts of War: A History of World War I in Poetry and Prose

by Andrew Ferguson (no photo)

Synopsis:

The First World War produced a unique outpouring of prose and poetry depicting the stark realism of a brutal and futile war; no war before or since has been so extensively chronicled nor its misery so exposed. First-hand experiences in the trenches compelled poets such as Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen to write with a resolute honesty, describing events with more feeling and sincerity than the heavily censored letters that were sent home.

Accounts of the Great War are typically written from an English perspective, but Ghosts of War encompasses a selection of contributions from across Europe and America, with an emphasis on the Scottish involvement. Using the words of over one hundred poets and writers, Andrew Ferguson recounts the war from its optimistic beginning to its sombre conclusion, bringing the conflict to life in a dramatic, emotive and, at times, humorous way.

Thanks, Jerome. The poetry of The Great War is magnificent and it moves the soul.

An upcoming book:
Release date: June 6, 2023

Soldiers Don't Go Mad: A True Story of Friendship, Poetry, and Mental Illness During the First World War

by Charles Glass

Synopsis:

From the moment war broke out across Europe in 1914, the world entered a new, unparalleled era of modern warfare. Soldiers faced relentless machine gun shelling, incredible artillery power, flame throwers, and gas attacks. Within the first four months of the war, the British Army recorded the nervous collapse of ten percent of its officers; the loss of such manpower to mental illness – not to mention death and physical wounds – left the army unable to fill its ranks. Second Lieutenant Wilfred Owen was twenty-four years old when he was admitted to the newly established Craiglockhart War Hospital for treatment of shell shock. A bourgeoning poet, trying to make sense of the terror he had witnessed, he read a collection of poems from a fellow officer, Siegfried Sassoon, and was impressed by his portrayal of the soldier’s plight. One month later, Sassoon himself arrived at Craiglockhart, having refused to return to the front after being wounded during battle.

Though Owen and Sassoon differed in age, class, education, and interests, both were outsiders – as soldiers unfit to fight, as gay men in a homophobic country, and as Britons unwilling to support a war likely to wipe out an entire generation of young men. But more than anything else, they shared a love of the English language, and its highest expression of poetry. As their friendship evolved over their months as patients at Craiglockhart, each encouraged the other in their work, in their personal reckonings with the morality of war, as well as in their treatment. Therapy provided Owen, Sassoon, and fellow patients with insights that allowed them express themselves better, and for the 28 months that Craiglockhart was in operation, it notably incubated the era’s most significant developments in both psychiatry and poetry.

Drawing on rich source materials, as well as Glass’s own deep understanding of trauma and war, Soldiers Don't Go Mad tells for the first time the story of the soldiers and doctors who struggled with the effects of industrial warfare on the human psyche. Writing beyond the battlefields, to the psychiatric couch of Craiglockhart but also the literary salons, halls of power, and country houses, Glass charts the experiences of Owen and Sassoon, and of their fellow soldier-poets, alongside the greater literary response to modern warfare. As he investigates the roots of what we now know as post-traumatic stress disorder, Glass brings historical bearing to how we must consider war’s raving effects on mental health, and the ways in which creative work helps us come to terms with even the darkest of times.

My goodness, Jerome, I’ve often thought the Owen/Sassoon friendship was book-worthy! Now, here it is! That’s another one I’ll be able to read and not have to write! Thanks a bunch for the great review!
Regards,
Andrea

Thank you, Jerome. This looks like such an important book.

Another must read for 2023. I think 2023 will have a bumper crop of new books.

An upcoming book:
Release date: April 23, 2024

Muse of Fire: World War One as Seen through the Lives of the Soldier Poets

by Michael Korda

Synopsis:

With Muse of Fire, Michael Korda, the best-selling author of Alone and Hero, takes a novel approach to World War I by telling its history through the lives of the soldier-poets whose verses memorialize the war's unimaginable horrors. He begins with Rupert Brooke and the halcyon days before violence engulfed his generation--destroying the self-contented world of Edwardian England--and ends with the tragic death of Wilfred Owen, killed only days before the armistice brought an end to a war that took over 25,000,000 lives. 

In a sweeping narrative that echoes The Guns of August, Korda recounts these four years of a civilization destroying itself and portrays the lives and anguished deaths of the young men who unforgettably illuminated it. As the success of Pat Barker's Regeneration, the remake of All Quiet on the Western Front and the images of brutal trench warfare in today's Ukraine demonstrate, contemporary interest in "the war to end war" remains high.