Activist Poetry #3 - Anti-War Poetry

[raze]

The difficulty of writing this entry is as such: how does one choose a poem to feature about war when there have been so many wars spanning so many centuries and touching so many lives - and still do the topic justice? Do I reach out to you, my audience, with something familiar, something you knew through your grandfather's WWII medals or your father's Vietnam nightmares or your sister's Iraq amputations? World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq - these likely resonate with you most. Or do I bring you a novel experience, let you read the voices of those left adrift in a post-colonial world, fighting over arbitrary borders and crushed cultures and the aftershocks of imperialism?

What I arrived at was this: the universal experience of all wars is suffering, regardless of the scale, the cause, the culture. It does not matter if a war is "necessary," it does not matter if it is "won;" it does not even matter if your perspective is that of the aggressor or the defender, the victor or the loser: all involved parties inevitably suffer, as do their countries. In this regard, most anti-war poetry is universal: it protests suffering, be it bodily, cultural, spiritual, etc.

Today's featured poem was selected because it is well known, widely circulated, and highly regarded in literary circles. However, I would like for you to pay special attention to today's "noteworthy related reading," as there are some extremely meaningful poems there about conflicts with which you may be less familiar, or that might offer a perspective you hadn't considered. Given my lengthy preamble, I'm going to let the poems speak for themselves.

Dulce Et Decorum Est
By Wilfred Owen

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.

Noteworthy Related Reading
Gaza (1 of 5) by Suheir Hammad, 2008 (video/slam poem). Delivered as spoken-word or "slam" poetry about conflict in Palestine, Suheir delivers a moving performance of the first of five poems about the war in Gaza.

The Camp by Mark T Jones, 2000 (poem). In the author's words: One day I walked in to a vast camp filled with 3,500 amputees, some as young as two. The horrifying scene that confronted me brought to mind certain works by the artists mentioned in this poem. It is noteworthy that twelve years after this poem was written, conflict still persists in Sierra-Leone to this day, largely funded by the trade conflict minerals used in making electronics and jewelry for developed nations.

Pursuit of Happiness by Andrea Gibson (poem/slam poem). In text as well as in spoken word, this poem regards current US conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The War Poetry Website gets credit for helping me find some of the poems featured here today, and includes a massive database of war poetry, from WWI to contemporary conflicts, featuring all ages, races, religions, and perspectives. I highly encourage you to check it out.

Comments

[ashestosnow]

Thank you for this. I was just at this moment writing in my journal on the topic of war; this makes an appropriate coda, and I will have to read through these for ideas later.

As an aspiring though unquestionably clumsy poet, Dulce Et Decorum Est is one of my inspirations. There is a viciousness to the words, a bitter and untempered venom that turns it from a mere description of the events of war into something that is almost an assault upon the mind, the senses; as it should be. I do not think one can, or should, write delicately of war. There is too much risk of abstracting it away.

Incidentally, this is the post I was referencing on my journal. It's not a poem, but it is one of the most aptly-stated things I've read in recent times.

a general's war poem

[ashestosnow]

Hmm. Here's what appeared, based on this post and other musings. Not what I had planned to write, but I like the message, in the end.


But how can I, who watched events unfold
From lofty position atop a steed
Speak well of war? (Or ill?) Wisdom decreed
That tales by their experiencers are told;
Lest history be written by rich men
Who know nothing of conflict, suffering,
Who flash grim grins and chant, "Let freedom ring!",
Yet stuff their pockets every now and then
On reapings from their fellows' blackened bones.
My tale is worth one-tenth of any man's
Who, pledging fealty, fell to the plan,
And fell in turn to sword, to spear, to stones;
Now one-legged, blind, burdened with memories
Of friends slit gut to throat, and left to bleed
With no succour, nor sweet balm of Gilead.
To write of war would leave me with unease
When all would be but vain attempt to cleanse
My slate of stains whose burdens others bore.
Let the bereaved and injured sing of war;
For this one has lost men, but never friends.