0
   

"...the true poets must be truthful." Wilfred Owen

 
 
Endymion
 
  1  
Reply Wed 20 Sep, 2006 09:56 am
Lord Ellpus, good to see you here -

I agree with Tino's thinking regarding both Brooke and Sassoon
-thanks for your insight Tino
I also recommend Sassoon's Memoirs of an Infantry Officer

I saw Sassoon's statement (below) featured in counterpunch.org - with reference to the current situation, as British Officers begin speaking out. How undated it looks on the internet nearly ninety years after it was written!
Here it is


A Soldier's Declaration

By SIEGFRIED SASSOON

I am making this statement as an act of willful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.

I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defense and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow-soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.

I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust.

I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.

On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practiced on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realize.

Siegfried L. Sassoon, July 1917


http://www.counterpunch.org/sassoon12112003.html

********************************

The Keith Douglas poem is really good - more of him, maybe?

thanks everyone,
Endy
0 Replies
 
Endymion
 
  1  
Reply Wed 20 Sep, 2006 06:38 pm
Actors Waiting In The Wings Of Europe

Actors waiting in the wings of Europe
we already watch the lights on the stage
and listen to the colossal overture begin.
For us entering at the height of the din
it will be hard to hear our thoughts, hard to gauge
how much our conduct owes to fear or fury.

Everyone, I suppose, will use these minutes
to look back, to hear music and recall
what we were doing and saying that year
during our last few months as people, near
the sucking mouth of the day that swallowed us all
into the stomach of a war. Now we are in it

and no more people, just little pieces of food
swirling in an uncomfortable digestive journey,
what we said and did then has a slightly
fairytale quality. There is an excitement
in seeing our ghosts wandering

...

(The final stanza of this poem is incomplete.)

Keith Douglas


I think How to Kill is outstanding - I can't find anything to touch it.
0 Replies
 
Tino
 
  1  
Reply Thu 21 Sep, 2006 03:07 am
Yes, agree about How to kill. It's been a favourite of mine for a long time.

Aristocrats

(I think I am becoming a God)


The noble horse, with courage in his eye,
clean in the bone, looks up at a shellburst:
away fly the images of the shires
but he puts the pipe back in his mouth.

Peter was unfortunately killed by an 88;
it took his leg away, he died in the ambulance.
I saw him crawling on the sand, he said
It's most unfair, they've shot my foot off.

How can I live among this gentle
obsolescent breed of heroes, and not weep?
Unicorns, almost,
for they are falling into two legends
in which their stupidity and chivalry
are celebrated. Each, fool and hero, will be an immortal.

The plains were their cricket pitch
and in the mountains the tremendous drop fences
brought down some of the runners. Here then
under the stones and earth they dispose themselves,
I think with their famous unconcern.
It is not gunfire I hear but a hunting horn.

K. Douglas.

#The epigraph is an English version of Nero's dying words "Vae! deus fio".
0 Replies
 
Tino
 
  1  
Reply Fri 22 Sep, 2006 04:57 am
George MacBeth described this as Douglas's best poem. See what you think:

Vergissmeinicht

Three weeks gone and the combatants gone
returning over the nightmare ground
we found the place again, and found
the soldier sprawling in the sun.

The frowning barrel of his gun
overshadowing. As we came on
that day, he hit my tank with one
like the entry of a demon.

Look. Here in the gunpit spoil
the dishonoured picture of his girl
who has put: Steffi. Vergissmeinicth
in a copybook gothic script.

We see him almost with content
abased, and seeming to have paid
and mocked at by his own equipment
that's hard and good when he's decayed.

But she would weep to see today
how on his skin the swart flies move;
the dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave.

For here the lover and killer are mingled
who had one body and one heart.
And death who had the soldier singled
has done the lover mortal hurt.



George MacBeth: This is Douglas's best poem. It has more energy and compassion than Douglas usually allows himself, but the same detached elegance in its descriptions. "Vergissmeinicht" is the German for "forget-me-not". The poem has a Homeric simplicity.

Laughing
0 Replies
 
theprofessor
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Sep, 2006 04:11 am
i saw this one an i thought you fellow poetry lovers would enjoy it

tell me what you think


within who's hearts truth grows
since the start only truth knows
the lies that convince innocence to show
its weakness
the devils heart seeks this
to fill in the hole
all the hatred and killin
has made hate spread an villians
take the dead willin to conceal the souls
heavenly wars civilians wage on mere mortals
every page contains a millions years of portals
like time an physics leaking like water out of port holes
is how quickly life sorts souls
wether your tall young short old
you fall to the reapers grasp
fall through the hour glass to see there past
as hours pass gasp for air for it might be there last


life when your hearts lifted
leaves your mind an body parts gifted
dont fight it go with it
when your light quits lift it out of the dark
out the belly of the shark

we live in days so hot they blaze
from the rays of gods gaze
so cold
like your soul was sold
people with originality an bold
origin of reality has grown old
the grounds hot but stones cold
people makeing money since they found gold

through all the conflict that causes grudges
the constitution that clauses judges
identity crises the cause is you dont know who the judge is


anonomys
0 Replies
 
Miller
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Sep, 2006 04:57 am
Quote:
"...the true poets must be truthful." Wilfred Owen


What makes a poet a "true poet"?
0 Replies
 
theprofessor
 
  1  
Reply Mon 25 Sep, 2006 01:14 am
one who speaks with heart an soul
if there hearts are shallow so are there scriptures
they lack the mental ability to be apathetic an empatheic at the same time
without soul your without concept or perception


wether talking about inner pain , or outward conflict,telling storys,
doing lymrics , or rhymeing
a true poet
does with such finnesse with pure ability
due to state of mind
0 Replies
 
Endymion
 
  1  
Reply Fri 29 Sep, 2006 05:48 am
Tino wrote:
George MacBeth described this as Douglas's best poem. See what you think:

Vergissmeinicht

Three weeks gone and the combatants gone
returning over the nightmare ground
we found the place again, and found
the soldier sprawling in the sun.

The frowning barrel of his gun
overshadowing. As we came on
that day, he hit my tank with one
like the entry of a demon.

Look. Here in the gunpit spoil
the dishonoured picture of his girl
who has put: Steffi. Vergissmeinicth
in a copybook gothic script.

We see him almost with content
abased, and seeming to have paid
and mocked at by his own equipment
that's hard and good when he's decayed.

But she would weep to see today
how on his skin the swart flies move;
the dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave.

For here the lover and killer are mingled
who had one body and one heart.
And death who had the soldier singled
has done the lover mortal hurt.



George MacBeth: This is Douglas's best poem. It has more energy and compassion than Douglas usually allows himself, but the same detached elegance in its descriptions. "Vergissmeinicht" is the German for "forget-me-not". The poem has a Homeric simplicity.

Laughing


The man is without doubt a great war poet. Thanks for posting his work, Tino - inspirational input!


*******************************************************

Miller asked what makes a poet a 'true poet'

I suppose Owen would have said "truth"
He was referring, I guess to the many poets of his generation that still wrote as romantics - such as Brooke (although I have a feeling if Brooke had seen France he might have changed his style!).
Brooke died of typhoid on his first deployment - I think in Malta - (correct me if I'm wrong.)

Rudyard Kipling is someone I should look up with regards this turn around, following his son's death and disappearance on the Somme.

I agree with much of theprofessor's response to the question, although I suppose if someone sees something differently to you - that is their 'truth'
It's the pro-war propaganda poets that tend to gall. There is no doubt that Brooke's poem The Soldier was very effectively used for recruiting.

In a way, I think these WWI poets were reporters of their day and just like today - the ones writing from the front are writing a different reality to the ones writing about the war from behind a desk.

There's no doubt that the 'strongest' of the poems, such as 'Dulce et Decorum est' will always remain important, because soldiers will always relate to them - and as the general population becomes more informed about the realities of war - truthful poetry about war will only become more meaningful.

Where as, poetry such as The Soldier will continue to be used by politicians in their ignorance of the people's intelligence, (although of course many a romantic joins the forces still) but to many veteran soldiers - such poetry will be sneered at as 'naive' or even 'corrupt'.

Also, as religion holds less power over people (I'm talking about the British here) so many romantic poems about sacrifice in war (often religious based) - loose their power.
We'll see.

I hope others can add something more eloquent to my ramblings here.
Thanks for the question.
I think it's a huge subject and in today's world - extremely important.

**********************************************

Hey Professor

Thanks for contributing - there is 'truth' in what you say. And you should know, being a truthful poet yourself.

*************************************************

I've been in Manchester on the peace demo - there I spoke to several vets - a couple of whom will spend the rest of their days disabled. Their wounds would have killed them in 1914-18 - but the scars they carry in their minds are just as terrible.

One told me - 'Old Soldiers Never Die - They Just Turn Into Peace Activists'
I sometimes think, if only Wilfred Owen had lived....
0 Replies
 
cumulus
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Sep, 2006 07:40 pm
ENDYMION wrote:

the dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave.

I was brought up short by KD's phrase here. What does he mean by a "paper eye"?

I think he means that the eye is "paper" to the reader of the poem who has not seen what Douglas has seen and therefore cannot imagine such a sight, especially as it is followed by the rather forced simile of a "burst stomach" and a "cave", [which is just the sort of daft simile you would expect to read only on paper, I presume. So Douglas is emphasing his point! Unless a burst stomach really does look like a cave, but I can't imagine it does]...although he could be saying that the eye is as dead as paper [which was laso once a living thing], but I maybe a million miles off here...Can somebody come and put the the record straight? Tino?



One told me - 'Old Soldiers Never Die - They Just Turn Into Peace Activists'
I sometimes think, if only Wilfred Owen had lived....


That is an excellent quote, Endymion, one that I will remember long after my flirtation with Mr Douglas' poetry is forlornly dead, and I agree that Wilfred Owen was a terrible loss to the world of literature. It makes even less sense [from a fatalistic point of view] than Keat's death at 25.
0 Replies
 
Endymion
 
  1  
Reply Mon 2 Oct, 2006 06:37 am
Hi cumulus

I only wrote the last three lines of the quote above (not sure about the rest - will look back)


Thanks for reflecting on the
'Old Soldiers Never Die - They Just Turn Into Peace Activists' quote

The guy who said it told me his daughter had written it on the front of a birthday card she made for him.

"How well she knows us" were his words!

**********************************************


Some interested viewers may find a personal outlet on the 'Revolution' thread - Endymion (original writing) - if you have time, drop in and take a look - say hi - maybe contribute?

Peace,
Endy
0 Replies
 
cumulus
 
  1  
Reply Tue 3 Oct, 2006 12:23 pm
Hi Endymion,

I think that is a brilliant quote - "How well she knows us" - there is another one by God knows who to the effect that if you want to enforce peace you use the services of those who have seen war because they will always enforce peace with the most deligence.

[Incidentally, I am embarrassed by a mistake I made, of course it should have read Keats's death (or Keats' death) not what I wrote. I knew I should have stayed on at school...]

I will certainly look in on the original writing thread...

Smile
0 Replies
 
Tino
 
  1  
Reply Tue 3 Oct, 2006 12:33 pm
cumulus wrote:

the dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave.

I was brought up short by KD's phrase here. What does he mean by a "paper eye"?

I think he means that the eye is "paper" to the reader of the poem who has not seen what Douglas has seen and therefore cannot imagine such a sight, especially as it is followed by the rather forced simile of a "burst stomach" and a "cave", [which is just the sort of daft simile you would expect to read only on paper, I presume. So Douglas is emphasing his point! Unless a burst stomach really does look like a cave, but I can't imagine it does]...although he could be saying that the eye is as dead as paper [which was also once a living thing], but I maybe a million miles off here...Can somebody come and put the the record straight? Tino?





****, I missed your question completely because it was shrouded in the quotation box-off, and even now I've seen it I can only offer something platitudinous like your interpretation is as valid as the next man's. I don't know what he meant, in short.

I need it explaining to me too.

Embarrassed
0 Replies
 
Endymion
 
  1  
Reply Wed 4 Oct, 2006 10:28 pm
The dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave -

What we have to remember is that the body had been 'sprawled in the sun' for three weeks - with out wishing to be grim - the soft parts of the body had probably been 'taken' by rats and birds. Mostly rats. A ribcage without innards would look like a cave.

I think the poet was describing exactly what he saw.

I am not sure why he used the word 'paper' - except that body fluids and dust could leave the eye-socket looking flat and white - like paper.

Anyway, that's enough of that.
0 Replies
 
cumulus
 
  1  
Reply Thu 5 Oct, 2006 06:31 am
ENDYMION wrote:
The dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave -

What we have to remember is that the body had been 'sprawled in the sun' for three weeks - with out wishing to be grim - the soft parts of the body had probably been 'taken' by rats and birds. Mostly rats. A ribcage without innards would look like a cave.

I think the poet was describing exactly what he saw.

I am not sure why he used the word 'paper' - except that body fluids and dust could leave the eye-socket looking flat and white - like paper.

Anyway, that's enough of that.



Thankyou Endymion. I never thought of the effects of deterioration on the corpse. Yes, like you say, that's enough of that!

Smile
0 Replies
 
Endymion
 
  1  
Reply Tue 2 Jan, 2007 08:01 pm
Eulogy

It happens on a Monday, at 11:20 A.M.,
as tower guards eat sandwiches
and seagulls drift by on the Tigris River.
Prisoners tilt their heads to the west
though burlap sacks and duct tape blind them.
The sound reverberates down concertina coils
the way piano wire thrums when given slack.
And it happens like this, on a blue day of sun,
when Private Miller pulls the trigger
to take brass and fire into his mouth:
the sound lifts the birds up off the water,
a mongoose pauses under the orange trees,
and nothing can stop it now, no matter what
blur of motion surrounds him, no matter what voices
crackle over the radio in static confusion,
because if only for this moment the earth is stilled,
and Private Miller has found what low hush there is
down in the eucalyptus shade, there by the river.

PFC B. Miller
(1980-March 22, 2004)
0 Replies
 
magadog67
 
  1  
Reply Tue 20 May, 2008 03:50 am
hi newbie here

i copied this so everyone knows what i'm talking about when i say my piece at the end as we where a bit off topic folks
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Recently, I have been studying the WWI poets.
Mostly Sassoon and Owen.

'Dulce Et Decorum Est' by Wilfred Owen, is outstanding.

NB "Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori" translates as "It is sweet and honourable to die for one's country."


Wilfred Owen

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-
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.


Owen wrote in his draft preface: (source Wilfred Owen The War Poems Edited By Jon Stallworthy, Chatto & Windus Limited, London 1994)

'All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true poets must be truthful.'
Also: 'This book is not about heros. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them.'

Owen was killed on the night of 3/4 November 1918

Peace,
Endy

this phrase was on the end of Kasabian's video for the song Empire and i was dying to know what it meant and after reading this i think the whole Kasabian song and video , maybe even the album Empire, is about this underrated piece of literay genius.

Just a wee thought Laughing
0 Replies
 
magadog67
 
  1  
Reply Tue 20 May, 2008 06:23 am
cumulus wrote:
ENDYMION wrote:
The dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave -

What we have to remember is that the body had been 'sprawled in the sun' for three weeks - with out wishing to be grim - the soft parts of the body had probably been 'taken' by rats and birds. Mostly rats. A ribcage without innards would look like a cave.

I think the poet was describing exactly what he saw.

I am not sure why he used the word 'paper' - except that body fluids and dust could leave the eye-socket looking flat and white - like paper



Smile


I think he meant the eye was as DRY as paper or had that white papery film like a cataract that we grow in death but ,hey. im just guessin Rolling Eyes
0 Replies
 
Endymion
 
  1  
Reply Wed 10 Sep, 2008 09:44 pm
It's been a while since i was here




With An Identity Disc

If ever I had dreamed of my dead name
High in the heart of London, unsurpassed
By Time for ever, and the Fugitive, Fame,
There taking a long sanctuary at last,

I better that; and recollect with shame
How once I longed to hide it from life's heats
Under those holy Cypresses, the same
That keep in shade the quiet place of Keats.

Now, rather, thank I God there is no risk
Of gravers scoring it with florid screed,
But let my death be memoried on this disc,
Wear it, sweet friend. Inscribe no date nor deed.
But let thy heart-beat kiss it night and day,
Until the name grow vague and wear away.


Wilfred Owen
France - March 1917
0 Replies
 
 

Related Topics

Poims - Favrits - Discussion by edgarblythe
Poetry Wanted: Seasons of a2k. - Discussion by tsarstepan
Night Blooms - Discussion by qwertyportne
It floated there..... - Discussion by Letty
Allen Ginsberg - Discussion by edgarblythe
"Alone" by Edgar Allan Poe - Discussion by Gouki
I'm looking for a poem by Hughes Mearns - Discussion by unluckystar
Spontaneous Poems - Discussion by edgarblythe
 
Copyright © 2025 MadLab, LLC :: Terms of Service :: Privacy Policy :: Page generated in 0.04 seconds on 01/11/2025 at 11:05:24