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It’s a month to Remembrance Day. Last year I noticed a school had students reciting ‘On Flanders Fields’. If you read this poem beyond the poppies & larks, you find a call for endless conflict. It’s worrying to see this being taught to children. So …
This year, I’ve given myself a little project: a month of daily poems to do with war which don't suggest to youth that war is a duty. Mostly from books on my shelves.
Off we go. About 2,600 years ago, Sappho comments on the beauty of weapons. Two modern translations.
Off we go. About 2,600 years ago, Sappho comments on the beauty of weapons. Two modern translations.
Sources:
(L) Sappho: Poems and Fragments. Trans Josephine Balmer @jobalmer. Brilliance Books, 1984. Beautifully illustrated by ‘SB’ (I can’t see a full name).
(R) Sappho: Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments. Trans Aaron Poochigian @Poochigian. Penguin Classics, 2009/2015
(L) Sappho: Poems and Fragments. Trans Josephine Balmer @jobalmer. Brilliance Books, 1984. Beautifully illustrated by ‘SB’ (I can’t see a full name).
(R) Sappho: Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments. Trans Aaron Poochigian @Poochigian. Penguin Classics, 2009/2015
War poems lie at the roots of Sappho’s poetic inheritance, and ours. Stories of the war of Troy were being told even before Odysseus reached home. Here Odysseus, an incognito wanderer, hears a court bard sing of the wooden horse and the bloody sack. And then …
... the poet reminds us what happened to the Trojan women.
Source: The Odyssey, translated by Robert Fagles. Penguin Classics, 1996; Book 8, lines 585-. Fagles’s Homer translations were the first I actually enjoyed: a long, loose line with energy and variety.
Source: The Odyssey, translated by Robert Fagles. Penguin Classics, 1996; Book 8, lines 585-. Fagles’s Homer translations were the first I actually enjoyed: a long, loose line with energy and variety.
Springtime 50 years before Ocean Vuong's poem: US resistance to the Vietnam war
Bosnia, 1992-95; Kosovo 1999
Soldiers long for letters. Second World War, US aircrews in UK, I think.
Soldiers treasure letters. John Clare, a century before Jarrell.
I found this in a war poetry anthology Penguin issued in 1942. The final section: 'The World War 1939- '. Unlike us, they didn't know when or how it would finish.
At the back, an advert for rationed Mars Bars
I found this in a war poetry anthology Penguin issued in 1942. The final section: 'The World War 1939- '. Unlike us, they didn't know when or how it would finish.
At the back, an advert for rationed Mars Bars
Life under occupation. Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic), March 1939.
North Africa, 1942/3. Keith Douglas.
'A dead tank alone / leans where the gossips stood.'
Douglas died in Normandy, June 1944.
'A dead tank alone / leans where the gossips stood.'
Douglas died in Normandy, June 1944.
Japan: 'Today is execution day for the pacifists.'
Kaneko Mitsuharu (English style Mitsuharu Kaneko) was distinctive during WW2 in his dissent from militarism.
@peace_news @warresistersint
Kaneko Mitsuharu (English style Mitsuharu Kaneko) was distinctive during WW2 in his dissent from militarism.
@peace_news @warresistersint
The weapons of the first Gulf war.
'The plane flies you / Not you it. Errors become true.'
Alan Ross served in the navy in WW2, on the convoys to Russia.
'The plane flies you / Not you it. Errors become true.'
Alan Ross served in the navy in WW2, on the convoys to Russia.
'Since everyone's anguish is our own,
We live yours over again, thin child ...'
'Powerful of the earth, masters of new poisons ...
The torments heaven sends us are enough.'
Primo Levi, 3 decades after Auschwitz, contemplates the threat of nuclear war
We live yours over again, thin child ...'
'Powerful of the earth, masters of new poisons ...
The torments heaven sends us are enough.'
Primo Levi, 3 decades after Auschwitz, contemplates the threat of nuclear war
In Jewish legend, saying 'shibboleth' with the wrong tribal accent could be fatal. The Dutch resistance used the place name Scheveningen to unmask infiltrators. Michael Donaghy imagines how GIs might have done it; how do we signal conformity and in whose judgement?
'How great it must be not to be civilian.'
In Hollywood's commodified war violence we are always the fighter, with agency. In life, we're more likely to be the civilian of Edwin Morgan's poem of 1994.
In Hollywood's commodified war violence we are always the fighter, with agency. In life, we're more likely to be the civilian of Edwin Morgan's poem of 1994.
The traditional English countryside of Airstrip One.
RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire is the USAF's only heavy bomber airfield in Europe.
RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire is the USAF's only heavy bomber airfield in Europe.
