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| Why I’ll be choosing poems instead of poppies this Armistice Day | Why I’ll be choosing poems instead of poppies this Armistice Day |
| (2 months later) | |
| There is so much fixation on the poppy as a symbol of remembrance these days that it seems almost forgotten that there can be other ways to pay tribute to those lost in war. A red poppy – which can now be obtained in various sizes and at various levels of bling – is an outward display, a signal to others that you care in the correct fashion. Over the past few years, what was once a humble paper token has become, for some people at least, a way of sniffing out patriot from traitor. Satirical Twitter account Poppy Watch collates the most bizarre examples: pepperoni poppies on pizzas, Halloween pumpkins carved with poppies, poppy onesies. | There is so much fixation on the poppy as a symbol of remembrance these days that it seems almost forgotten that there can be other ways to pay tribute to those lost in war. A red poppy – which can now be obtained in various sizes and at various levels of bling – is an outward display, a signal to others that you care in the correct fashion. Over the past few years, what was once a humble paper token has become, for some people at least, a way of sniffing out patriot from traitor. Satirical Twitter account Poppy Watch collates the most bizarre examples: pepperoni poppies on pizzas, Halloween pumpkins carved with poppies, poppy onesies. |
| In contrast, the quiet contemplation of poetry as we approach the centenary of the armistice is not quite so showy. Barely anyone knows you’re doing it, and it arguably requires a tad more mental energy, and certainly a greater degree of empathy. But for those of us who have not been feeling especially patriotic of late, it provides the ideal form of remembrance. The ambivalence of the first world war poets towards empire and conflict is worth reflecting on at a time when bombastic, bellicose rhetoric is being adopted once again by our politicians. | In contrast, the quiet contemplation of poetry as we approach the centenary of the armistice is not quite so showy. Barely anyone knows you’re doing it, and it arguably requires a tad more mental energy, and certainly a greater degree of empathy. But for those of us who have not been feeling especially patriotic of late, it provides the ideal form of remembrance. The ambivalence of the first world war poets towards empire and conflict is worth reflecting on at a time when bombastic, bellicose rhetoric is being adopted once again by our politicians. |
| So much of our appreciation of poetry in adulthood is to do with the way that it is taught. Many of us study the war poets at school, but I wonder how many carry the words with them when they are grown. It depends on the poet, of course. Rupert Brooke’s “If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field/That is for ever England”, have to be some of the dreariest words in poetry, though I imagine they have their fans among acolytes of Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg. | So much of our appreciation of poetry in adulthood is to do with the way that it is taught. Many of us study the war poets at school, but I wonder how many carry the words with them when they are grown. It depends on the poet, of course. Rupert Brooke’s “If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field/That is for ever England”, have to be some of the dreariest words in poetry, though I imagine they have their fans among acolytes of Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg. |
| Thankfully, our teacher (and I’d hazard many others) provided us with Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est as a counterpoint. The gore, the blood and guts of it, made it perfect for schoolchildren: “If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood/come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs ... My friend, you would not tell with such high zest/ To children ardent for some desperate glory/ The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est/ Pro patria mori”. | Thankfully, our teacher (and I’d hazard many others) provided us with Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est as a counterpoint. The gore, the blood and guts of it, made it perfect for schoolchildren: “If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood/come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs ... My friend, you would not tell with such high zest/ To children ardent for some desperate glory/ The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est/ Pro patria mori”. |
| It was, I think, good teaching. We were encouraged to be critical of empty-headed patriotism and to engage with the suffering of these men in a way that now might have some screaming, “Enemies of the people!” But no teacher, whatever their politics, can force empathy. It was the power of the words that got through to many of us, who at the time were a mere two years younger than the majority of those who were sent off to war, and possibly the same age as some of the 250,000 underage soldiers who dodged the age requirement. | It was, I think, good teaching. We were encouraged to be critical of empty-headed patriotism and to engage with the suffering of these men in a way that now might have some screaming, “Enemies of the people!” But no teacher, whatever their politics, can force empathy. It was the power of the words that got through to many of us, who at the time were a mere two years younger than the majority of those who were sent off to war, and possibly the same age as some of the 250,000 underage soldiers who dodged the age requirement. |
| I’ve carried an enthusiasm for war poetry with me ever since. Most years, when Remembrance Sunday comes around, I read the poems of Charles Hamilton Sorley, who, despite being held by Robert Graves as one of the three important poets killed during the first world war (the others being Isaac Rosenberg and Owen), is still rather less known. | I’ve carried an enthusiasm for war poetry with me ever since. Most years, when Remembrance Sunday comes around, I read the poems of Charles Hamilton Sorley, who, despite being held by Robert Graves as one of the three important poets killed during the first world war (the others being Isaac Rosenberg and Owen), is still rather less known. |
| My late grandfather introduced me to the Scottish poet’s work, photocopying a copy of Untitled (“When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead”) and posting it to me while I was at university. The poem, which was found in Sorley’s kit bag after his death, is a powerful rebuttal to the poetry of Brooke and the culture of remembrance in general. He writes: “Say not soft things as other men have said/ That you’ll remember. For you need not so”. Sorley was killed in the Battle of Loos at the age of 20. | My late grandfather introduced me to the Scottish poet’s work, photocopying a copy of Untitled (“When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead”) and posting it to me while I was at university. The poem, which was found in Sorley’s kit bag after his death, is a powerful rebuttal to the poetry of Brooke and the culture of remembrance in general. He writes: “Say not soft things as other men have said/ That you’ll remember. For you need not so”. Sorley was killed in the Battle of Loos at the age of 20. |
| Some of the best war poems reach across no-man’s land to consider and include the “enemy”. In these nationalistic times, they still appear transgressive. Another of Sorley’s poems, To Germany, feels daring in its refusal to buy into the rhetoric of war. “You are blind like us,” it begins, and ends with a vision of peace: “We’ll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain”. More eerie is Owen’s Strange Meeting, where in the depths of the underworld he encounters another soldier who tells him: “I am the enemy you killed”. I also love the second world war poet Keith Douglas’s poem Vergissmeinnicht, in which he encounters a dead German soldier and contemplates a photograph of his sweetheart: “But she would weep to see today”. | Some of the best war poems reach across no-man’s land to consider and include the “enemy”. In these nationalistic times, they still appear transgressive. Another of Sorley’s poems, To Germany, feels daring in its refusal to buy into the rhetoric of war. “You are blind like us,” it begins, and ends with a vision of peace: “We’ll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain”. More eerie is Owen’s Strange Meeting, where in the depths of the underworld he encounters another soldier who tells him: “I am the enemy you killed”. I also love the second world war poet Keith Douglas’s poem Vergissmeinnicht, in which he encounters a dead German soldier and contemplates a photograph of his sweetheart: “But she would weep to see today”. |
| In this age of the internet, poetry is thriving. Some is excellent, but some of it, it’s fair to say, is terrible. Instead of endless memes about Carlos Williams’s plums, it would be great to see a war poem go viral more than 100 years after the guns fell silent, and inspire new generations of readers. I have barely scratched the surface of war poetry here. Two years ago, in this newspaper, Andrew Motion provided an array of suggestions including modern and international poets, arguing that our definition of war poetry has become too narrow. Writer, poet and broadcaster Lucy London’s collections, Female Poets of the First World War, also have an international outlook. | In this age of the internet, poetry is thriving. Some is excellent, but some of it, it’s fair to say, is terrible. Instead of endless memes about Carlos Williams’s plums, it would be great to see a war poem go viral more than 100 years after the guns fell silent, and inspire new generations of readers. I have barely scratched the surface of war poetry here. Two years ago, in this newspaper, Andrew Motion provided an array of suggestions including modern and international poets, arguing that our definition of war poetry has become too narrow. Writer, poet and broadcaster Lucy London’s collections, Female Poets of the First World War, also have an international outlook. |
| This year I’ll contemplate a poem that it’s safe to say will never go viral on the internet: the modernist epic In Parenthesis by David Jones, published by Faber in 1937. Jones’s narrative account of his war experiences is a work of genius, much beloved by other poets, but which, as Owen Sheers has noted, “hasn’t fared well in finding a purchase in the canon”. In the preface, Jones notes how the mix of Londoners and Welshman with whom he went to war were able to find common ground. “Both speak in parables, the wit of both is quick, both are natural poets,” he writes, “yet no two groups could well be more dissimilar.” But, he goes on to write, they had “the same discomforts, the same grievances, the same maims, the same deep fears, the same pathetic jokes”. | This year I’ll contemplate a poem that it’s safe to say will never go viral on the internet: the modernist epic In Parenthesis by David Jones, published by Faber in 1937. Jones’s narrative account of his war experiences is a work of genius, much beloved by other poets, but which, as Owen Sheers has noted, “hasn’t fared well in finding a purchase in the canon”. In the preface, Jones notes how the mix of Londoners and Welshman with whom he went to war were able to find common ground. “Both speak in parables, the wit of both is quick, both are natural poets,” he writes, “yet no two groups could well be more dissimilar.” But, he goes on to write, they had “the same discomforts, the same grievances, the same maims, the same deep fears, the same pathetic jokes”. |
| That hits at the root of what, to my mind, makes the greatest war poetry: common ground. Not the nationalistic or the bombastic, but that which acknowledges a shared humanity across background, class and nation state. At a time when the country is divided, and pitting itself against our European neighbours, we’d do well to remember that, whether each of us chooses to wear a poppy or not. | That hits at the root of what, to my mind, makes the greatest war poetry: common ground. Not the nationalistic or the bombastic, but that which acknowledges a shared humanity across background, class and nation state. At a time when the country is divided, and pitting itself against our European neighbours, we’d do well to remember that, whether each of us chooses to wear a poppy or not. |
| • Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist | • Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist |
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