{"id":21934,"date":"2013-08-20T07:16:36","date_gmt":"2013-08-19T19:16:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=21934"},"modified":"2013-08-20T07:16:55","modified_gmt":"2013-08-19T19:16:55","slug":"tuesday-poem-for-a-song-by-barbara-strang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2013\/08\/20\/tuesday-poem-for-a-song-by-barbara-strang\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Poem: “For A Song” By Barbara Strang"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a Song
\n<\/em><\/strong>To my father<\/em>
\n<\/em><\/strong>
\nAfter it ended
\nthe war was still on
\naround our house<\/p>\n

in the thin-lipped silences
\nand grown-ups dressed in uniform colours,
\nnavy, khaki, brown.<\/p>\n

My father had been there,
\ndidn\u2019t talk about it<\/p>\n

we children rifled
\nthrough fat albums
\non the bottom shelf<\/p>\n

snaps of trucks and desert sand,
\nyoung men in lemon squeezers,
\nhearty blokes who still came round.<\/p>\n

My father had been there,
\ndidn\u2019t talk about it<\/p>\n

he withdrew fat volumes
\nof war histories from the library
\nto find what it was about.<\/p>\n

……………..<\/span>~<\/p>\n

My father had been there,
\ndidn\u2019t talk about it<\/p>\n

told us he\u2019d lost his fiddle in Crete,
\nbought one better for a song in Malta.<\/p>\n

My father had been there,
\ndidn\u2019t talk about it<\/p>\n

he woke from dreams
\nof German planes<\/p>\n

of climbing mountains
\nalone by night<\/p>\n

watching
\nfor a ship out.
\n.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Barbara Strang<\/p>\n

Published in The Corrosion Zone<\/em><\/strong>, HeadworX, 2011<\/p>\n

Reproduced with permission.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

About The Poem:<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>Last week I heralded my intention to start a new Tuesday Poem feature series, this time looking at poetry themed around “war.”\u00a0 The series was sparked by my recent BookSworn post, When Characters We Love Die<\/a>, in which I discussed some of my thoughts around war and realism in relation to fantasy fiction—and even as I wrote it, I was thinking that in many ways, poetry has encapsulated the capture of realism in relation to war during the past century.<\/p>\n

In 2011, I was honoured to launch Barbara Strang’s The Corrosion Zone<\/strong><\/em>, a fine volume of poetry. “For A Song”<\/em> is one of a sequence of poems about Barbara’s\u00a0father and specifically addresses both aspects of his war experience (I understand that “of climbing mountains \/\/alone by night”<\/em> refers to Crete) and also the aftermath of war, as seen through Barbara’s eyes, as one of his children.<\/p>\n

I am delighted that Barbara has agreed to let me feature\u00a0“For A Song”<\/em> today as the start of the “war” series.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

About The Poet:<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>Barbara was born in Invercargill. She is a published and award-winning poet and haikuist. She has had two well-received collections of her poetry published. The first, Duck Weather<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Poets Group) appeared in 2005, and The Corrosion Zone<\/em><\/strong> (HeadworX) in 2011. She is the leader of Airing Cupboard Women Poets and editor for Sudden Valley Press. She edited the NZ Poetry Society\u2019s 2009 and 2010 anthologies. The various awards she has won include the Aoraki Festival Contest, 1998, the NZ Poetry Society\u2019s International Haiku Competition, 1997 and 2003, and the Takahe Cultural Studies Competition 2002. Barbara has an MA in Creative Writing from Victoria University, and she lives at McCormacks Bay, Christchurch, New Zealand.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub<\/strong> and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world, click here<\/strong><\/a> or on the Quill<\/strong> icon <\/strong>in the sidebar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a Song To my father After it ended the war was still on around our house in the thin-lipped silences and grown-ups dressed in uniform colours, navy, khaki, brown. My father had been there, didn\u2019t talk about it we children rifled through fat albums on the bottom shelf snaps of trucks and desert sand, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21934"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22009,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21934\/revisions\/22009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}