POETREE

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.

The Animal Rights and Animal Welfare communities have long used poetry as a vehicle of activism and expression. Long before the mainstreaming of the movement, it emerged piecemeal in literary circles - at times to great effect.

For example, in 1925, a man by the name of Edward Breck began the National Anti-Steel Trap League. The League circulated literature that reached millions across the United States, often using poetry to deliver a message that though common today was revolutionary at its inception: that steel leghold traps are cruel and ought to be abolished. A direct outcome of the League's efforts were laws against steel traps in three states.

One poem published and widely circulated by the League was as follows:

To A Fur
by F. F. Van de Water

The trap jaws clamped and held him fast;
None marked his fright, none heard his cries.
His struggles ceased; he lay at last
With wide, uncomprehending eyes,
And watched the sky grow dark above
And watched the sunset turn to grey,
And quaked with anguish while he strove
To gnaw the prisoned leg away.
Then day came rosy from the east
But still those steel jaws kept their hold,
And no one watched the prisoned beast
But fear and hunger, thirst and cold.
Oppressed by pain, his dread grew numb,
Fright no more stirred his flagging breath.
He longed, in vain, to see him come,
The cruel hunter, bringing death.
Then through the gloom that night came One
Who set the timid spirit free;
"I know thine anguish, little son –
so once men trapped and tortured me."


Noteworthy Related Reading:

The Mouse's Petition by Anna Barbauld, 1773 (poem) Topic: Vivisection. This poem was actually left by the cage of a laboratory mouse by a lab assistant and is considered to be one of the earliest examples of anti-vivisection poetry.

Sheep of Fools by Sue Coe, Judith Brody & Monte Beauchamp, 2005 (book including verse & illustration) Topic: Wool Industry. If you click "look inside," you can see the opening verse of the book, which consists of Sue Coe's vivid artwork accompanied by verse and "hoofnotes" detailing historical facts on the wool trade.

Voice of The Voiceless by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1806 (poem, five versions available) Topic: Animal Welfare (general) with some focus on hunting. This poem is still widely circulated in its shortened version in the animal welfare community today.


If you would like to share an animal rights poem, or your thoughts on the featured poem, please do so in the comments!