The Tuesday Poem: “Armistice ” by Laura Staveley Anker
Armistice
11/11/1918 New Brighton
.
What is wrong?
All the aunties are crying,
then laughing
with my mother.
If I stand on the green sofa
I can see through the curtains
people’s heads bobbing past,
and such a noise …
We find our Union Jacks
go out onto the Esplanade.
The man from next door
is playing his violin,
‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’
as he marches on the footpath.
They dance, hug, still crying,
now here comes the band,
tummies and cheeks puffed out –
‘There’s a long, long trail
…………a-winding …’
Who is this man
dragged along behind a cart
a rope around his neck
head wobbling, arms flapping?
I scream.
Warm arms grab me.
Her voice says,
‘He’s only the wicked Kaiser,
and he’s a straw dummy!’
Now we are all saved.
.
by Lorna Staveley Anker
from The Judas Tree, editor Bernadette Hall, Canterbury University Press, 2013.
Reproduced with permission.
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With this April marking the centenary of ANZAC participation in the invasion of Gallipoli in World War One, I have been featuring poetry on the theme of war and its consequences throughout the month.
It seems appropriate to conclude with Laura Staveley Anker’s Armistice, marking a child’s-eye view of the conclusion of World War 1 — a poem that concludes on a fittingly spare note, which may be sincere or may be irony.
Bernadette Hall, the editor of The Judas Tree, notes that another of Laura Staveley Anker’s WW1 poems, Ellen’s Vigil, arises from a time when as:
“…a very small child, she lived for a time with her grandmother, Ellen. This poem arises from her wartime memories of her grandmother’s grief stricken household. This is the most frequently published of Lorna’s poems. It was included in Lauris Edmond’s 1986 collection of prose and poetry ‘Women in Wartime’ … A copy of the poem lies in the tomb of the Unknown Warrior in front of the National War Memorial in Wellington.”
You can read Ellen’s Vigil here.
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To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world, click here.
It is heartening to see a war poem that takes such a subtle, even quirky point of view, Helen, from the position of a child.
I’ve been looking for authentic Kiwi voices from the era, all as part of the ANZAC centenary, but they were not as easy to find as I thought they’d be.