felis_ultharus | (no subject)

A poem for Remembrance Day:

ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

By gay British poet Wilfred Owen, who was killed while crossing the Sambre-Oise Canal a week almost to the hour before World War I ended. It's my favourite poem about World War I. As a Canadianist, I should probably like "Flander's Fields" more, but I suspect this better captures what was going on in Europe.

Private George Lawrence Price was the last Canadian to die in that war -- the second-to-last soldier of any nationality, two minutes before the ceasefire took effect. He was hunting a German sniper who was moving from house to house. The sniper got him first. So that's a bit of Canadian lore for the day.

Meanwhile, I tried to find out last month if any of the soldiers dishonourably discharged for homosexuality in World War II -- and there were many, according to Paul Jackson's book on the subject -- are still alive. I've been thinking about making this a political issue by bringing it to the NDP convention. These men had their benefits taken away, and had the fact that they were discharged "with ignominy" added to their discharge papers, which any potential employer could ask to see.

I tried to contact Jackson about the subject, but he seems to have no contact info anywhere in cyberspace. Strange for a published author. But just now, I found it -- turns out he's at Concrodia now instead of McGill. I've just sent him an e-mail.

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Excellent post.

Crown employees in Ontario are given Remembrance Day as a holiday, so I'm at home today. I was planning to take a few minutes to read some Owen. Thanks.

It's nice to know it's still a holiday somewhere. I think it should be a holiday nationally.

Excellent post, and thank you for posting this poem. I have a soft spot for WWI poetry - so horrible, yet so beautifully done. When asked, though, I tend to go with "Dulce et Decorum Est", which I believe was written by the same man. I had no idea he was gay - thanks for this history note.

No problem.

And you're right. WWI poetry is some of the most beautiful out there.

(Although "In Flanders Fields" is a bit militaristic for more tastes, it's very beautiful too.)

This is pretty much what I was going to say. "Dulce et Decorum" is probably the first poem I ever loved that taught me that poetry doesn't have to be beautiful to be powerful.

And I had no idea Owen was gay. My thought for the day.

It's true that "Dulce" gets so much power from its ideas, but it's also pretty good on craft.

I have to admit, I was doing my master's before I noticed it was a double sonnet -- and even then it had to be pointed out to me. And the second sonnet under the metaphor of the "green sea" is what gives the poem its quality of physical sinking.

That's a beauty of a kind, even if it's a dark beauty.

pretty good on craft.

Oh, I agree. But the result, speaking purely aurally, is ugly. Of course that's what makes it so powerful. I didn't even realise it myself until I wrote an essay on it in a course on poetry which was heavy on theory, and we were instructed to note things like consonant clusters, etc... and then I actually took the time to listen to all the hard, spitting consonants in it... "knock-kneed... cursed through sludge... guttering, choking... gargling in the froth-corrupted lungs" etc. Right down to the phrase "Dulce et decorum" itself. I think I compared it to a hybrid of German and Welsh, which may have been a rhetorical flourish too far in an essay, but it was my first year!

But yes, the way it is crafted is beautiful.

Thank you.

I'm glad you liked it ^_^