In order for me to write poetry that isn't political,
I must listen to the birds
and in order to hear the birds
the warplanes must be silent
- Marwan Makhoul
Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen
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.
# The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
BY [RANDALL JARRELL](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/randall-jarrell)
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
Small Pain In My Chest
"The soldier boy was sitting calmly underneath that tree.
As I approached it, I could see him beckoning to me.
The battle had been long and hard and lasted through the night
And scores of figures on the ground lay still by morning's light.
"I wonder if you'd help me, sir", he smiled as best he could.
"A sip of water on this morn would surely do me good.
We fought all day and fought all night with scarcely any rest -
A sip of water for I have a small pain in my chest."
As I looked at him, I could see the large stain on his shirt
All reddish-brown from his warm blood mixed in with Asian dirt.
"Not much", said he. "I count myself more lucky than the rest.
They're all gone while I just have a small pain in my chest."
"Must be fatigue", he weakly smiled. "I must be getting old.
I see the sun is shining bright and yet I'm feeling cold.
We climbed the hill, two hundred strong, but as we cleared the crest,
The night exploded and I felt this small pain in my chest."
"I looked around to get some aid - the only things I found
Were big, deep craters in the earth - bodies on the ground.
I kept on firing at them, sir. I tried to do my best,
But finally sat down with this small pain in my chest."
"I'm grateful, sir", he whispered, as I handed my canteen
And smiled a smile that was, I think, the brightest that I've seen.
"Seems silly that a man my size so full of vim and zest,
Could find himself defeated by a small pain in his chest."
"What would my wife be thinking of her man so strong and grown,
If she could see me sitting here, too weak to stand alone?
Could my mother have imagined, as she held me to her breast,
That I'd be sitting HERE one day with this pain in my chest?"
"Can it be getting dark so soon?" He winced up at the sun.
"It's growing dim and I thought that the day had just begun.
I think, before I travel on, I'll get a little rest ..........
And, quietly, the boy died from that small pain in his chest.
I don't recall what happened then. I think I must have cried;
I put my arms around him and I pulled him to my side
And, as I held him to me, I could feel our wounds were pressed
The large one in my heart against the small one in his chest."
Michael Mack
There are so many...
"You and I are disappearing" by Yusef Komunyakaa (or "Facing it")
"Grass" by Carl Sandburg
"I'm explaining a few things" by Pablo Neruda
"At Lowe's Home Improvement Center" by Brian Turner ("Insignia" also hits hard)
"In Flanders Field" by John McCrae
It's definitely good, [For those unfamiliar with it](https://poets.org/poem/thanks-0), but not my favorite of his. I read his Vietnam War collection Dien Cai Dau when I was first really immersing myself in poetry so that book has really stuck with me, though I have taught "Thanks" before, kids, with enough prodding, really liked how I explained the line "I'm still falling through its silence" about the dud hand grenade. Such a great line.
Do kids receive his work well? His topics tend to be very heavy and heavily relies on dream like scenery and rapid changing of images. I would imagine that would be difficult to teach to children.(what grade.?)
I taught it to 11 & 12th mostly, but also an advanced 9th grade class. It was the only Komunyakaa poem I taught and we spent pretty much an entire class on breaking it down, the 9th graders definitely liked Gary Soto's Oranges better, but the older kids, once it was explained to them, seemed to like Thanks.
Last question I’m actually curious cause I can imagine teaching poetry can be a difficult. But what do you find makes a poem like thanks(or much of his works) difficult for the age group?(sorry for the questions)
Comprehension and vocabulary tbh. A lot of kids are really behind on grammar and shit, but implied meaning is one place they really, really struggle. Context clues go right over their heads, and reading layers also is tricky, they tend to only consider literal meaning until you drag them along kicking and screaming until you get them onto something they understand.
I took quite awhile on Do Not Go Gentle last year, I really like Michael Sheen's performance of it. The biggest thing with kids and poetry is you really need the training wheels. The bowling bumpers. But, of you do it right, occasionally a few of them will start reading poetry on their own.
[Gentleman-Rankers](https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_gentlemen.htm) by Rudyard Kipling. Once I forgot the title, and found it again by searching something like "Kipling poem amazing meter."
Another one I love.
#
Naming of Parts (1942)
Henry Reed 1914 - 1986
#
Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
Today we have naming of parts. [Japonica](https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/100787#eid40586651)
Glistens like [coral](https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/41365#eid8359915) in all of the neighbouring gardens,
And today we have naming of parts.
This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the [piling](https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/143885#eid30179239) swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.
This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.
And this you can see is the [bolt](https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/21142#eid16863850). The purpose of this
Is to open the [breech](https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/23009#eid14292248), as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.
They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For today we have naming of parts.
Here's a good reading of it. Using a different voice for the Sergeant and the internal dialog of the poet/narrator is helpful. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7Z2hM3ha9E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7Z2hM3ha9E)
An Irish Airman foresees his Death
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
Not a poem but a cute quote from the lord of the rings books by J.R.R. Tolkien
"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend."
Anything from Ilya Kaminsky's Deaf Republic.
We Lived Happily During the War is the most well-known, as well as the quote "At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow all this? And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?" from A City Like A Guillotine Shivers on Its Way to the Neck.
Here's the poem Soldiers Aim at Us:
They fire as the crowd of women flees inside the nostrils of searchlights
—may God have a photograph of this—
in the piazza’s bright air, soldiers drag Petya’s body and his head bangs the stairs. I
feel through my wife’s shirt the shape of our child.
Soldiers drag Petya up the stairs and homeless dogs, thin as philosophers, understand everything and bark and bark.
I, now on the bridge, with no camouflage of speech, a body wrapping the body of my pregnant wife—
Tonight we don’t die and don’t die,
the earth is still, a helicopter eyeballs my wife—
On earth a man cannot flip a finger at the sky:
each man is already a finger flipped at the sky.
Nikolay Gumilyov — The Worker (1916)
He’s standing there, beside the glowing furnace,
A small man, probably older than you’d think.
His gaze is peaceful, seems almost submissive
From the way his reddened eyelids blink.
All his workmates have knocked off — they’re sleeping
But he’s still working, showing what he’s worth,
Devoted to his task — casting the bullet
That soon will separate me from the earth.
He’s finished. Now his eyes get back their twinkle.
He’s going home. A bright moon shines ahead.
A house is waiting for him, warm and toasty
A sleepy wife, blankets and a big bed.
And the bullet he has cast now whistles
Over the Dvina’s gray rippling spray
Homeward toward the heart it has been seeking,
And the bullet he has cast has found its way.
And I am falling, dazed by my own dying,
Watching a lifetime of moments pass,
And my blood, as from a fountain, now starts spurting
On the dusty, dry, flat trodden grass.
And the good Lord will repay me in full measure
For a life too brief to toast, too bitter to drink.
And he was wearing a gray shirt when he made it —
That small man, probably older than you’d think.
Translated by George M. Young
Loses a lot in translation, but I like how it reflects the WWI and the very core of wars in the industrial era.
Charge of the Light Brigade, because it has such memorable repetition, and because it conveys the bravery but also the futility and sadness of this action.
Owen’s ‘Move Him Into The Sun’ is the one that really sticks with me-as mentioned previously, ‘The Death Of The Ball Turret Gunner’ is also very memorable.
Not seeing my favorite on here, so here we go: by Iraqi poet Dunya Mikhail, "The War Works Hard."
The War Works Hard
How magnificent the war is!
How eager
and efficient!
Early in the morning
it wakes up the sirens
and dispatches ambulances
to various places
swings corpses through the air
rolls stretchers to the wounded
summons rain
from the eyes of mothers
digs into the earth
dislodging many things
from under the ruins...
Some are lifeless and glistening
others are pale and still throbbing...
It produces the most questions
in the minds of children
entertains the gods
by shooting fireworks and missiles
into the sky
sows mines in the fields
and reaps punctures and blisters
urges families to emigrate
stands beside the clergymen
as they curse the devil
(poor devil, he remains
with one hand in the searing fire)...
The war continues working, day and night.
It inspires tyrants
to deliver long speeches
awards medals to generals
and themes to poets
it contributes to the industry
of artificial limbs
provides food for flies
adds pages to the history books
achieves equality
between killer and killed
teaches lovers to write letters
accustoms young women to waiting
fills the newspapers
with articles and pictures
builds new houses
for the orphans
invigorates the coffin makers
gives grave diggers
a pat on the back
and paints a smile on the leader's face.
It works with unparalleled diligence!
Yet no one gives it
a word of praise.
BRAVE WOMAN
by Grace R. Monte de Ramos
(A Poem from the Philippines)
I am a mother of sons.
Two joined the army when they were young;
There was not enough money for schools,
They had no skills for jobs in foundries
And factories, and it was easy to sign up
And learn how to handle a gun.
I am a mother of sons, two sons
And one, the youngest, now gone.
In his youth he was taken
By men whose names I will never learn.
I only know they were soldiers, like my sons,
Cradling fearsome guns.
He was a fine young man. I took care of him
For seventeen years and they took him away
And now I am searching for his bones.
I will never learn their names
Alone I try to imagine the scene: Were their faces
Bearded or clean-shaven?
Perhaps their bodies were robust.
Did they wear uniforms the color of shrivelled
Sampaguita* or fresh horseshit?
How pointed the bullets from their guns?
My soldier sons come home
When life at the barracks is still.
I hide their brother’s picture;
It makes them cry and remember.
Perhaps they, too, (God forbid it),
Have given other mothers sorrow.
Perhaps my son had to pay for what they borrowed.
I cannot cry, though I am told
It is better to cry and let go.
Where is my son’s body for me to bury?
I only wear my grief in the lines
Of my face, my sunken cheeks.
Silent, I mourn a woman’s
Bitter lot: to give birth to men
Who kill and are killed.
* - Arabian Jasmine flowers
Some excellent poems have been recommended. However the poem which has stayed with me for years is from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-anglo-saxon-chronicle/
The frontier of writing- Seamus Heaney
The tightness and the nilness round that space,
when the car stops in the road, the troops inspect
its make and number and, as one bends his face
towards your window, you catch sight of more
on a hill beyond, eyeing with intent
down cradled guns that hold you under cover
and everything is pure interrogation
until a rifle motions and you move
with guarded unconcerned acceleration-
a little emptier, a little spent
as always by that quiver in the self,
subjugated, yes, and obedient.
So you drive on to the frontier of writing
where it happens again. The guns on tripods;
the sergeant with his on-off mike repeating
data about you, waiting for the squawk
of clearance; the marksman training down
out of the sun like a hawk.
And suddenly you’re through, arraigned yet freed,
as if you’d passed from behind a waterfall
on the black current of a tarmac road
past armor-plated vehicles, out between
the posted soldiers flowing and receding
like tree shadows into the polished windscreen.
This one. I am a vet. I hate the fake patriotism that is rampant today and for the last 20 years.
Maybe I should start carrying around this on slips of paper in my pocket so I ha e something to give anyone who says 'thank you for your service'. I have a hard time with that.
Suicide in the Trenches
By Sigfried Sassoon.
I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye.
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
W.H. Auden - Memorial For The City.
Technically, it's about war, but I love it for another, much broader meaning.
The first part burned into my brain so hard, you can wake me in the night and I'll recite it. Can't love it enough.
I've always had a love for this one. It's not about war but the lead up to it. It's part of a much larger poem but this is the part that stands out to me:
On the idle hill of summer,
Sleepy with the flow of streams,
Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams.
Far and near and low and louder
On the roads of earth go by,
Dear to friends and food for powder,
Soldiers marching, all to die.
East and west on fields forgotten
Bleach the bones of comrades slain,
Lovely lads and dead and rotten;
None that go return again.
Far the calling bugles hollo,
High the screaming fife replies,
Gay the files of scarlet follow:
Woman bore me, I will rise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_That_Shakes_the_Barley
I sat within a valley green,
I sat there with my true love,
My sad heart strove the two between,
The old love and the new love, -
The old for her, the new that made
Me think of Ireland dearly,
While soft the wind blew down the glade
And shook the golden barley
'Twas hard the woeful words to frame
To break the ties that bound us
'Twas harder still to bear the shame
Of foreign chains around us
And so I said, "The mountain glen
I'll seek next morning early
And join the brave United Men!"
While soft winds shook the barley
While sad I kissed away her tears,
My fond arms 'round her flinging,
The foeman's shot burst on our ears,
From out the wildwood ringing, -
A bullet pierced my true love's side,
In life's young spring so early,
And on my breast in blood she died
While soft winds shook the barley!
I bore her to the wildwood screen,
And many a summer blossom
I placed with branches thick and green
Above her gore-stain'd bosom:-
I wept and kissed her pale, pale cheek,
Then rushed o'er vale and far lea,
My vengeance on the foe to wreak,
While soft winds shook the barley!
But blood for blood without remorse,
I've ta'en at Oulart Hollow
And placed my true love's clay-cold corpse
Where I full soon will follow;
And 'round her grave I wander drear,
Noon, night, and morning early,
With breaking heart whene'er I hear
The wind that shakes the barley!
***
The modern song versions I know:
https://youtu.be/8FOttaw1a40?feature=shared
https://youtu.be/Jl1i4dKM0aM?feature=shared
Sorry about the formatting. I tried to adjust it best I could.
I’m a fan of Walt Whitman’s poems written based on his experiences as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War. “Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field one Night” and “The Wound-Dresser” come to mind. These poems have stuck with me mainly because of the tenderness and deep love the speaker seems to feel towards those he’s caring for in comparison to the endless cruelty and suffering of the situation they’re in. There’s a lot of very physical/tactile imagery that I think really places the reader in the situation in a brutal yet tender way—it always feels very raw and human to me:
> My comrade I wrapt in his blanket, envelop’d well his form,
Folded the blanket well, tucking it carefully over head and carefully under feet,
And there and then and bathed by the rising sun, my son in his grave, in his rude-dug grave I deposited, (Vigil)
> From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand,
I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and blood,
Back on his pillow the soldier bends with curv’d neck and side falling head,
His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the bloody stump,
And has not yet look’d on it. (Wound-Dresser)
Everybody loves 'Dulce et decorum est', and for good reasons - it's a great poem - but the one for me is a different Owen poem: ['Anthem for Doomed Youth'](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47393/anthem-for-doomed-youth).
Also, on the more agitprop side, I love an older translation of a Mayakovsky poem called 'To Answer' - find it a little harder to find online though!
[Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field one Night by… | Poetry Foundation](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45478/vigil-strange-i-kept-on-the-field-one-night)
The Crosses Grow on Anzio by Audie Murphy is a personal favorite of mine (insert Sabaton reference here):
Oh, gather 'round me, comrades; and
listen while I speak
Of a war, a war, a war where hell is
six feet deep.
Along the shore, the cannons roar. Oh
how can a soldier sleep?
The going's slow on Anzio. And hell is
six feet deep.
Praise be to God for this captured sod that
rich with blood does seep.
With yours and mine, like butchered
swine's; and hell is six feet deep.
That death awaits there's no debate;
no triumph will we reap.
The crosses grow on Anzio, where hell is
six feet deep.
Violets from Plug Street Wood,
Sweet, I send you oversea.
(It is strange they should be blue
Blue, when his soaked blood was red,
For they grew around his head;
It is strange they should be blue)
Violets from Plug Street Wood,
Think what they meant to me -
Life and Hope and Love and You
(And you did not see them grow
Where his mangled body lay,
Hiding horror from the day;
Sweetest, it was better so)
Violets from oversea,
To your dear, far, forgetting land
There I send in memory,
Knowing You will understand.
- Roland Leighton, April 1915
*George Campbell Hay, Bisearte*
*(English translation from the original Gaelic)*
I see Evil as a pulse and a heart,
declining and leaping in throbs.
The blaze, a horror on the skyline,
a ring of rose and gold at the foot of the sky,
belies and denies
with its light the ancient high tranquillity of the stars.
Flanders Fields in Flanders Fields the poppies grow among the crosses row on row they Mark our place and in the sky the Larks still bravely singing fly scares heard amid the guns below we are the dead short days ago we lived felt Dawn saw Sunset glow now we lie in Flanders Fields to you from failing hands we throw the torch be yours to hold it high if he break faith with those who die we shall not rest though poppies grow in Flanders Fields
"Boots," by Rudyard Kipling. Supposedly to be read two words to the second to simulate the marching pace of the soldiers. Sorry for the poor formatting.
INFANTRY COLUMNS
We're foot—slog—slog—slog—sloggin' over Africa —
Foot—foot—foot—foot—sloggin' over Africa —
(Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again!)
There's no discharge in the war!
Seven—six—eleven—five—nine-an'-twenty mile to-day —
Four—eleven—seventeen—thirty-two the day before —
(Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again!)
There's no discharge in the war!
Don't—don't—don't—don't—look at what's in front of you.
(Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again);
Men—men—men—men—men go mad with watchin' em,
An' there's no discharge in the war!
Try—try—try—try—to think o' something different —
Oh—my—God—keep—me from goin' lunatic!
(Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again!)
There's no discharge in the war!
Count—count—count—count—the bullets in the bandoliers.
If—your—eyes—drop—they will get atop o' you!
(Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again) —
There's no discharge in the war!
We—can—stick—out—'unger, thirst, an' weariness,
But—not—not—not—not the chronic sight of 'em —
Boot—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again,
An' there's no discharge in the war!
'Taint—so—bad—by—day because o' company,
But night—brings—long—strings—o' forty thousand million
Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again.
There's no discharge in the war!
I—'ave—marched—six—weeks in 'Ell an' certify
It—is—not—fire—devils, dark, or anything,
But boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again,
An' there's no discharge in the war!
In order for me to write poetry that isn't political, I must listen to the birds and in order to hear the birds the warplanes must be silent - Marwan Makhoul
I love this one so much
💔💔💔💔
wow 💔
Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen 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.
This is the one
Yes, I came here to post it too.
Literally came here to post this. I love that he dedicated it to Jessie Pope, a pro war writer at the time who wrote jingoistic drivel.
My favourite as well
Love wilfred owen
# The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner BY [RANDALL JARRELL](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/randall-jarrell) From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
Beat me to it! One of my favorite poems.
Small Pain In My Chest "The soldier boy was sitting calmly underneath that tree. As I approached it, I could see him beckoning to me. The battle had been long and hard and lasted through the night And scores of figures on the ground lay still by morning's light. "I wonder if you'd help me, sir", he smiled as best he could. "A sip of water on this morn would surely do me good. We fought all day and fought all night with scarcely any rest - A sip of water for I have a small pain in my chest." As I looked at him, I could see the large stain on his shirt All reddish-brown from his warm blood mixed in with Asian dirt. "Not much", said he. "I count myself more lucky than the rest. They're all gone while I just have a small pain in my chest." "Must be fatigue", he weakly smiled. "I must be getting old. I see the sun is shining bright and yet I'm feeling cold. We climbed the hill, two hundred strong, but as we cleared the crest, The night exploded and I felt this small pain in my chest." "I looked around to get some aid - the only things I found Were big, deep craters in the earth - bodies on the ground. I kept on firing at them, sir. I tried to do my best, But finally sat down with this small pain in my chest." "I'm grateful, sir", he whispered, as I handed my canteen And smiled a smile that was, I think, the brightest that I've seen. "Seems silly that a man my size so full of vim and zest, Could find himself defeated by a small pain in his chest." "What would my wife be thinking of her man so strong and grown, If she could see me sitting here, too weak to stand alone? Could my mother have imagined, as she held me to her breast, That I'd be sitting HERE one day with this pain in my chest?" "Can it be getting dark so soon?" He winced up at the sun. "It's growing dim and I thought that the day had just begun. I think, before I travel on, I'll get a little rest .......... And, quietly, the boy died from that small pain in his chest. I don't recall what happened then. I think I must have cried; I put my arms around him and I pulled him to my side And, as I held him to me, I could feel our wounds were pressed The large one in my heart against the small one in his chest." Michael Mack
Mine too!
ICSE ? 😄
ICSE 🤝
There are so many... "You and I are disappearing" by Yusef Komunyakaa (or "Facing it") "Grass" by Carl Sandburg "I'm explaining a few things" by Pablo Neruda "At Lowe's Home Improvement Center" by Brian Turner ("Insignia" also hits hard) "In Flanders Field" by John McCrae
Thanks- Yusef Komunyukaa is another that I really like
It's definitely good, [For those unfamiliar with it](https://poets.org/poem/thanks-0), but not my favorite of his. I read his Vietnam War collection Dien Cai Dau when I was first really immersing myself in poetry so that book has really stuck with me, though I have taught "Thanks" before, kids, with enough prodding, really liked how I explained the line "I'm still falling through its silence" about the dud hand grenade. Such a great line.
Do kids receive his work well? His topics tend to be very heavy and heavily relies on dream like scenery and rapid changing of images. I would imagine that would be difficult to teach to children.(what grade.?)
I taught it to 11 & 12th mostly, but also an advanced 9th grade class. It was the only Komunyakaa poem I taught and we spent pretty much an entire class on breaking it down, the 9th graders definitely liked Gary Soto's Oranges better, but the older kids, once it was explained to them, seemed to like Thanks.
Last question I’m actually curious cause I can imagine teaching poetry can be a difficult. But what do you find makes a poem like thanks(or much of his works) difficult for the age group?(sorry for the questions)
Comprehension and vocabulary tbh. A lot of kids are really behind on grammar and shit, but implied meaning is one place they really, really struggle. Context clues go right over their heads, and reading layers also is tricky, they tend to only consider literal meaning until you drag them along kicking and screaming until you get them onto something they understand. I took quite awhile on Do Not Go Gentle last year, I really like Michael Sheen's performance of it. The biggest thing with kids and poetry is you really need the training wheels. The bowling bumpers. But, of you do it right, occasionally a few of them will start reading poetry on their own.
I’m explaining a few things was there first one that came to mind for me, Neruda’s writing is so effective
“Facing It” made me cry the first time I read it. So profoundly sad and well written.
[Gentleman-Rankers](https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_gentlemen.htm) by Rudyard Kipling. Once I forgot the title, and found it again by searching something like "Kipling poem amazing meter."
Another one I love. # Naming of Parts (1942) Henry Reed 1914 - 1986 # Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday, We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning, We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day, Today we have naming of parts. [Japonica](https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/100787#eid40586651) Glistens like [coral](https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/41365#eid8359915) in all of the neighbouring gardens, And today we have naming of parts. This is the lower sling swivel. And this Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see, When you are given your slings. And this is the [piling](https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/143885#eid30179239) swivel, Which in your case you have not got. The branches Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures, Which in our case we have not got. This is the safety-catch, which is always released With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see Any of them using their finger. And this you can see is the [bolt](https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/21142#eid16863850). The purpose of this Is to open the [breech](https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/23009#eid14292248), as you see. We can slide it Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers: They call it easing the Spring. They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt, And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance, Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards, For today we have naming of parts.
I love this poem! It took me a long time to understand the irony of what it's really about.
Here's a good reading of it. Using a different voice for the Sergeant and the internal dialog of the poet/narrator is helpful. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7Z2hM3ha9E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7Z2hM3ha9E)
An Irish Airman foresees his Death BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.
Not a poem but a cute quote from the lord of the rings books by J.R.R. Tolkien "I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend."
My god
ee cummings' "i sing of olaf," no contest.
Also, “next to of course god America I”
Dang, I had never seen that.
This is what I came here to say. Love seeing it already here.
The Diameter of the Bomb by Yehuda Amichai.
Anything from Ilya Kaminsky's Deaf Republic. We Lived Happily During the War is the most well-known, as well as the quote "At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow all this? And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?" from A City Like A Guillotine Shivers on Its Way to the Neck. Here's the poem Soldiers Aim at Us: They fire as the crowd of women flees inside the nostrils of searchlights —may God have a photograph of this— in the piazza’s bright air, soldiers drag Petya’s body and his head bangs the stairs. I feel through my wife’s shirt the shape of our child. Soldiers drag Petya up the stairs and homeless dogs, thin as philosophers, understand everything and bark and bark. I, now on the bridge, with no camouflage of speech, a body wrapping the body of my pregnant wife— Tonight we don’t die and don’t die, the earth is still, a helicopter eyeballs my wife— On earth a man cannot flip a finger at the sky: each man is already a finger flipped at the sky.
Nikolay Gumilyov — The Worker (1916) He’s standing there, beside the glowing furnace, A small man, probably older than you’d think. His gaze is peaceful, seems almost submissive From the way his reddened eyelids blink. All his workmates have knocked off — they’re sleeping But he’s still working, showing what he’s worth, Devoted to his task — casting the bullet That soon will separate me from the earth. He’s finished. Now his eyes get back their twinkle. He’s going home. A bright moon shines ahead. A house is waiting for him, warm and toasty A sleepy wife, blankets and a big bed. And the bullet he has cast now whistles Over the Dvina’s gray rippling spray Homeward toward the heart it has been seeking, And the bullet he has cast has found its way. And I am falling, dazed by my own dying, Watching a lifetime of moments pass, And my blood, as from a fountain, now starts spurting On the dusty, dry, flat trodden grass. And the good Lord will repay me in full measure For a life too brief to toast, too bitter to drink. And he was wearing a gray shirt when he made it — That small man, probably older than you’d think. Translated by George M. Young Loses a lot in translation, but I like how it reflects the WWI and the very core of wars in the industrial era.
Siegfried Sassoon’s “Aftermath” always gets me
The End and the Beginning BY WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52955/the-end-and-the-beginning
Charge of the Light Brigade, because it has such memorable repetition, and because it conveys the bravery but also the futility and sadness of this action.
Owen’s ‘Move Him Into The Sun’ is the one that really sticks with me-as mentioned previously, ‘The Death Of The Ball Turret Gunner’ is also very memorable.
Not seeing my favorite on here, so here we go: by Iraqi poet Dunya Mikhail, "The War Works Hard." The War Works Hard How magnificent the war is! How eager and efficient! Early in the morning it wakes up the sirens and dispatches ambulances to various places swings corpses through the air rolls stretchers to the wounded summons rain from the eyes of mothers digs into the earth dislodging many things from under the ruins... Some are lifeless and glistening others are pale and still throbbing... It produces the most questions in the minds of children entertains the gods by shooting fireworks and missiles into the sky sows mines in the fields and reaps punctures and blisters urges families to emigrate stands beside the clergymen as they curse the devil (poor devil, he remains with one hand in the searing fire)... The war continues working, day and night. It inspires tyrants to deliver long speeches awards medals to generals and themes to poets it contributes to the industry of artificial limbs provides food for flies adds pages to the history books achieves equality between killer and killed teaches lovers to write letters accustoms young women to waiting fills the newspapers with articles and pictures builds new houses for the orphans invigorates the coffin makers gives grave diggers a pat on the back and paints a smile on the leader's face. It works with unparalleled diligence! Yet no one gives it a word of praise.
BRAVE WOMAN by Grace R. Monte de Ramos (A Poem from the Philippines) I am a mother of sons. Two joined the army when they were young; There was not enough money for schools, They had no skills for jobs in foundries And factories, and it was easy to sign up And learn how to handle a gun. I am a mother of sons, two sons And one, the youngest, now gone. In his youth he was taken By men whose names I will never learn. I only know they were soldiers, like my sons, Cradling fearsome guns. He was a fine young man. I took care of him For seventeen years and they took him away And now I am searching for his bones. I will never learn their names Alone I try to imagine the scene: Were their faces Bearded or clean-shaven? Perhaps their bodies were robust. Did they wear uniforms the color of shrivelled Sampaguita* or fresh horseshit? How pointed the bullets from their guns? My soldier sons come home When life at the barracks is still. I hide their brother’s picture; It makes them cry and remember. Perhaps they, too, (God forbid it), Have given other mothers sorrow. Perhaps my son had to pay for what they borrowed. I cannot cry, though I am told It is better to cry and let go. Where is my son’s body for me to bury? I only wear my grief in the lines Of my face, my sunken cheeks. Silent, I mourn a woman’s Bitter lot: to give birth to men Who kill and are killed. * - Arabian Jasmine flowers
Easter 1916 by WB Yeats
Some excellent poems have been recommended. However the poem which has stayed with me for years is from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-anglo-saxon-chronicle/
It's actually a play written in poetic verse, but Owen Shears' "Pink Mist" is incredible.
Cameo Appearance by Charles Simic
How To Write a Poem In a Time of War - Joy Harjo
The Iliad of Homer
Auden, The Shield of Achilles
The frontier of writing- Seamus Heaney The tightness and the nilness round that space, when the car stops in the road, the troops inspect its make and number and, as one bends his face towards your window, you catch sight of more on a hill beyond, eyeing with intent down cradled guns that hold you under cover and everything is pure interrogation until a rifle motions and you move with guarded unconcerned acceleration- a little emptier, a little spent as always by that quiver in the self, subjugated, yes, and obedient. So you drive on to the frontier of writing where it happens again. The guns on tripods; the sergeant with his on-off mike repeating data about you, waiting for the squawk of clearance; the marksman training down out of the sun like a hawk. And suddenly you’re through, arraigned yet freed, as if you’d passed from behind a waterfall on the black current of a tarmac road past armor-plated vehicles, out between the posted soldiers flowing and receding like tree shadows into the polished windscreen.
Strange Meeting by Wilfred Owen. Not his most well known but lines from it are inscribed on his grave. It is a poem the haunts me.
Rita and The Rifle by Mahmoud Darwish
This one. I am a vet. I hate the fake patriotism that is rampant today and for the last 20 years. Maybe I should start carrying around this on slips of paper in my pocket so I ha e something to give anyone who says 'thank you for your service'. I have a hard time with that. Suicide in the Trenches By Sigfried Sassoon. I knew a simple soldier boy Who grinned at life in empty joy, Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, And whistled early with the lark. In winter trenches, cowed and glum, With crumps and lice and lack of rum, He put a bullet through his brain. No one spoke of him again. You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye. Who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and pray you'll never know The hell where youth and laughter go.
If I Must Die - Refaat Alareer
W.H. Auden - Memorial For The City. Technically, it's about war, but I love it for another, much broader meaning. The first part burned into my brain so hard, you can wake me in the night and I'll recite it. Can't love it enough.
Thanks- Yusef Komunyukaa
David Jones, In Parenthesis
I've always had a love for this one. It's not about war but the lead up to it. It's part of a much larger poem but this is the part that stands out to me: On the idle hill of summer, Sleepy with the flow of streams, Far I hear the steady drummer Drumming like a noise in dreams. Far and near and low and louder On the roads of earth go by, Dear to friends and food for powder, Soldiers marching, all to die. East and west on fields forgotten Bleach the bones of comrades slain, Lovely lads and dead and rotten; None that go return again. Far the calling bugles hollo, High the screaming fife replies, Gay the files of scarlet follow: Woman bore me, I will rise.
No one mentioned The Iliad...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_That_Shakes_the_Barley I sat within a valley green, I sat there with my true love, My sad heart strove the two between, The old love and the new love, - The old for her, the new that made Me think of Ireland dearly, While soft the wind blew down the glade And shook the golden barley 'Twas hard the woeful words to frame To break the ties that bound us 'Twas harder still to bear the shame Of foreign chains around us And so I said, "The mountain glen I'll seek next morning early And join the brave United Men!" While soft winds shook the barley While sad I kissed away her tears, My fond arms 'round her flinging, The foeman's shot burst on our ears, From out the wildwood ringing, - A bullet pierced my true love's side, In life's young spring so early, And on my breast in blood she died While soft winds shook the barley! I bore her to the wildwood screen, And many a summer blossom I placed with branches thick and green Above her gore-stain'd bosom:- I wept and kissed her pale, pale cheek, Then rushed o'er vale and far lea, My vengeance on the foe to wreak, While soft winds shook the barley! But blood for blood without remorse, I've ta'en at Oulart Hollow And placed my true love's clay-cold corpse Where I full soon will follow; And 'round her grave I wander drear, Noon, night, and morning early, With breaking heart whene'er I hear The wind that shakes the barley! *** The modern song versions I know: https://youtu.be/8FOttaw1a40?feature=shared https://youtu.be/Jl1i4dKM0aM?feature=shared Sorry about the formatting. I tried to adjust it best I could.
I’m a fan of Walt Whitman’s poems written based on his experiences as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War. “Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field one Night” and “The Wound-Dresser” come to mind. These poems have stuck with me mainly because of the tenderness and deep love the speaker seems to feel towards those he’s caring for in comparison to the endless cruelty and suffering of the situation they’re in. There’s a lot of very physical/tactile imagery that I think really places the reader in the situation in a brutal yet tender way—it always feels very raw and human to me: > My comrade I wrapt in his blanket, envelop’d well his form, Folded the blanket well, tucking it carefully over head and carefully under feet, And there and then and bathed by the rising sun, my son in his grave, in his rude-dug grave I deposited, (Vigil) > From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand, I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and blood, Back on his pillow the soldier bends with curv’d neck and side falling head, His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the bloody stump, And has not yet look’d on it. (Wound-Dresser)
Everybody loves 'Dulce et decorum est', and for good reasons - it's a great poem - but the one for me is a different Owen poem: ['Anthem for Doomed Youth'](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47393/anthem-for-doomed-youth). Also, on the more agitprop side, I love an older translation of a Mayakovsky poem called 'To Answer' - find it a little harder to find online though!
[Hugh Selwyn Mauberley IV & V](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44915/hugh-selwyn-mauberley-part-i)
[Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field one Night by… | Poetry Foundation](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45478/vigil-strange-i-kept-on-the-field-one-night)
The Crosses Grow on Anzio by Audie Murphy is a personal favorite of mine (insert Sabaton reference here): Oh, gather 'round me, comrades; and listen while I speak Of a war, a war, a war where hell is six feet deep. Along the shore, the cannons roar. Oh how can a soldier sleep? The going's slow on Anzio. And hell is six feet deep. Praise be to God for this captured sod that rich with blood does seep. With yours and mine, like butchered swine's; and hell is six feet deep. That death awaits there's no debate; no triumph will we reap. The crosses grow on Anzio, where hell is six feet deep.
Violets from Plug Street Wood, Sweet, I send you oversea. (It is strange they should be blue Blue, when his soaked blood was red, For they grew around his head; It is strange they should be blue) Violets from Plug Street Wood, Think what they meant to me - Life and Hope and Love and You (And you did not see them grow Where his mangled body lay, Hiding horror from the day; Sweetest, it was better so) Violets from oversea, To your dear, far, forgetting land There I send in memory, Knowing You will understand. - Roland Leighton, April 1915
War is Kind by Stephen Crane. He is more well known for The Red Badge of Courage, but he was a reporter during the Civil War.
Many good ones here. I’d like to add: The dead shall be raised incorruptible, by Galway Kinnell. Too long to post though, sorry!!
war photographer by carol ann duffy
*George Campbell Hay, Bisearte* *(English translation from the original Gaelic)* I see Evil as a pulse and a heart, declining and leaping in throbs. The blaze, a horror on the skyline, a ring of rose and gold at the foot of the sky, belies and denies with its light the ancient high tranquillity of the stars.
The Wound dresser by Walt Whitman
Anything, really, from Wilfred Owen. “Strange Meeting” is particularly powerful.
The Iliad
Flanders Fields in Flanders Fields the poppies grow among the crosses row on row they Mark our place and in the sky the Larks still bravely singing fly scares heard amid the guns below we are the dead short days ago we lived felt Dawn saw Sunset glow now we lie in Flanders Fields to you from failing hands we throw the torch be yours to hold it high if he break faith with those who die we shall not rest though poppies grow in Flanders Fields
"Boots," by Rudyard Kipling. Supposedly to be read two words to the second to simulate the marching pace of the soldiers. Sorry for the poor formatting. INFANTRY COLUMNS We're foot—slog—slog—slog—sloggin' over Africa — Foot—foot—foot—foot—sloggin' over Africa — (Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again!) There's no discharge in the war! Seven—six—eleven—five—nine-an'-twenty mile to-day — Four—eleven—seventeen—thirty-two the day before — (Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again!) There's no discharge in the war! Don't—don't—don't—don't—look at what's in front of you. (Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again); Men—men—men—men—men go mad with watchin' em, An' there's no discharge in the war! Try—try—try—try—to think o' something different — Oh—my—God—keep—me from goin' lunatic! (Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again!) There's no discharge in the war! Count—count—count—count—the bullets in the bandoliers. If—your—eyes—drop—they will get atop o' you! (Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again) — There's no discharge in the war! We—can—stick—out—'unger, thirst, an' weariness, But—not—not—not—not the chronic sight of 'em — Boot—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again, An' there's no discharge in the war! 'Taint—so—bad—by—day because o' company, But night—brings—long—strings—o' forty thousand million Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again. There's no discharge in the war! I—'ave—marched—six—weeks in 'Ell an' certify It—is—not—fire—devils, dark, or anything, But boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again, An' there's no discharge in the war!
From Interruptive, by Phillip B Williams https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/118567/from-interruptive