{"id":28872,"date":"2015-04-28T06:30:31","date_gmt":"2015-04-27T18:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=28872"},"modified":"2015-04-27T21:29:02","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T09:29:02","slug":"the-tuesday-poem-armistice-by-laura-staveley-anker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2015\/04\/28\/the-tuesday-poem-armistice-by-laura-staveley-anker\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tuesday Poem: “Armistice ” by Laura Staveley Anker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Armistice<\/strong><\/p>\n

11\/11\/1918 New Brighton
\n.<\/span>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

What is wrong?
\nAll the aunties are crying,
\nthen laughing
\nwith my mother.<\/p>\n

If I stand on the green sofa
\nI can see through the curtains
\npeople\u2019s heads bobbing past,
\nand such a noise \u2026<\/p>\n

We find our Union Jacks
\ngo out onto the Esplanade.
\nThe man from next door
\nis playing his violin,
\n\u2018Keep the Home Fires Burning\u2019
\nas he marches on the footpath.<\/p>\n

They dance, hug, still crying,
\nnow here comes the band,
\ntummies and cheeks puffed out \u2013
\n\u2018There\u2019s a long, long trail
\n…………<\/span>a-winding \u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

Who is this man
\ndragged along behind a cart
\na rope around his neck
\nhead wobbling, arms flapping?<\/p>\n

I scream.
\nWarm arms grab me.
\nHer voice says,
\n\u2018He\u2019s only the wicked Kaiser,
\nand he\u2019s a straw dummy!\u2019<\/p>\n

Now we are all saved.
\n.<\/span><\/p>\n

by Lorna Staveley Anker<\/p>\n

from\u00a0 The Judas Tree<\/strong><\/em>, editor Bernadette Hall, Canterbury University Press, 2013.<\/p>\n

Reproduced with permission.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"judas_tree\"<\/a>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.<\/p>\n

It seems appropriate to conclude with Laura Staveley Anker’s Armistice<\/em>, 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.<\/p>\n

Bernadette Hall, the editor of The Judas Tree<\/strong><\/em>, notes that another of Laura Staveley Anker’s WW1 poems, Ellen’s Vigil<\/em>, arises from a time when as:<\/p>\n

\u201c…a very small child, she lived for a time with her grandmother, Ellen. This poem arises from her wartime memories of her grandmother\u2019s grief stricken household.\u00a0 This is the most frequently published of Lorna\u2019s poems. It was included in Lauris Edmond\u2019s 1986 collection of prose and poetry \u2018Women in Wartime\u2019<\/strong> … A copy of the poem lies in the tomb of the Unknown Warrior in front of the National War Memorial in Wellington.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

You can read Ellen’s Vigil<\/em> here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"TuesPoem\"<\/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>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s heads bobbing past, and such a noise \u2026 We find our Union Jacks go out onto the Esplanade. The man from next door […]<\/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-28872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28872","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=28872"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28882,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28872\/revisions\/28882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}