The Tuesday Poem: A Selection Of World War One Poetry
With the recent commemoration of the centenary of World War 1 beginning, it seems fitting to look at some of the specifically World War 1 related poetry featured on the blog over recent years.
“Lijssenthoek” by Joanna Preston
Yesterday, I linked to Joanna Preston’s interview on Radio New Zealand’s “Sunday Morning” programme. One of the poems Joanna read at the conclusion of the interview was the haibun Lijssenthoek, which I featured as part of a war poetry series last year:
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There. Red brick and white stone; an archway anything but triumphal. We wheeled our hired bicycles through the gate-building, blinking at the transition from light to shadow to light again as we stepped out into the garden. And garden it was. Rows of lilies, ranged in front of the crosses that marked the Canadian graves. The New Zealand graves. The South African graves…”
To read the haibun in full, click on:
Lijssenthoek
To hear Joanna read the poem click on:
“Sunday Morning” Interview: Joanna Preston
and go to approximately 22.50 minutes through the interview.
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“Ellen’s Vigil” by Lorna Staveley Anker
Ellen’s Vigil is inscribed in NZ’s national memorial to the Unknown Soldier. I also featured it as part of last year’s war poetry series:
“Benjamin……..Isaac…….Tom
Passchendaele…..Ypres…and Somme
…………….three ovals float
…………….on the cold wall
plastered whiter
………………………………..than their bones…”
To read the full poem, click on:
Ellen’s Vigil
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Wilfrid Owen:
I don’t think you can address Word War 1 poetry without looking at the work of Wilfrid Owen. I have featured two of his poems over the past four years:
Anthem For Doomed Youth on September 4 last year:
Anthem For Doomed Youth
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 tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped 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 . . .”
Dulce Et Decorum Est
NZEF Trooper 203453 by Leigh Vickridge
And last, but not least, Leigh Vickridge’s NZEF Trooper 203453, featured for ANZAC Day in 2011:
“He was born at Longton Avenue
in London
not far from Crystal Palace
High tea on Sunday evenings
with the mater and the pater
then minor public school
Gallipoli washed away all that –
carnage at Chunuk Bair
flyblown corpses in the sun…”