Wartime Poets

Here, Bullet

If a body is what you want,
then here is bone and gristle and flesh.
Here is the clavicle-snapped wish,
the aorta's opened valves, the leap
thought makes at the synaptic gap.
Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,
that inexorable flight, that insane puncture
into heat and blood. And I dare you to finish
what you've started. Because here, Bullet,
here is where I complete the word you bring
hissing through the air, here is where I moan
the barrel's cold esophagus, triggering
my tongue's explosives for the rifling I have
inside of me, each twist of the round
spun deeper, because here, Bullet,
here is where the world ends, every time.
-Brian Turner

What is a poet doing fighting a war? How can a person balance both a pen and a gun? Questions I have asked myself multiple times over the past few years, and increasingly within the past few weeks. Many contemporary poets have the privilege of inhabiting a space between the often lofty and intangible rhetoric of academia and the harsh yet beautiful gritty reality of the world. And as hard as it is for me to believe, poets do go to war. No, not with pens, but with guns. This American poet, Brian Turner, is the second poet who's work I have read and appreciated who has fought in Iraq. The first was a poet in South Africa. As he told me in an email "seems life has chucked me about in all sorts of turbulent directions of late, but wherever we are there are experiences and that's all a poet needs."

Although the idea of a poet going to war saddens me, (quite frankly, however, the idea of anyone going to war saddens me)history has shown that poetry often bears witness to war. Members of the famous Lost Generation including poets John Peale Bishop, E.E. Cummings, Archibald MacLeish, Gertrude Stein, Edith Wharton, John Allan Wyeth were all heavily influenced by World War I. Countless poets fought in the Vietnam war (check out this page: http://www.vietnamexp.com/Vietnam%20Poetry.html)

Another Protest

Walking over land made void by napalm
And thousand-pound bombs,
My legs are covered with ashes,
A dusting of malignant snow.

We march in single file, dumbfounded
And gasp at five crispy critters.
Charcoal-ized lumps, they are only
Remnants of yellow men.

But the blackened scene is disrupted
By a small splash of crimson.
We pause at the absurdity of
A perfectly blooming rose
-Robert H. Dirr Jr.



And then, recalling not too long ago, when I was in Spain, my conservative host mother handed me a small warn book. Written in slightly faded typewriter font, it was a book of poetry recounting the horrors of the revolution in Cuba. I read the book carefully, cover to cover, absolutely unsure of what side this man was on until I realized that he had no side, he had no agenda. His writing was simply a mirror, a reflection of the time in which he lived. I would include one of his works here, however, his work is not published (how can one living in Cuba publish a book of poetry about the revolution?). My host mother had acquired such a book from her son, who, being a writer himself, visited Cuba and stayed with the poet. The poet had awarded her son the book when he disclosed his own identity as a writer. I don't even know his name.

Finally, how could I forget, the involvement of poetry and poets in the Spanish Civil War. As Stephen Spender wrote in his Introduction to Poems for Spain:
"Poets and poetry have played a considerable part in the Spanish War, because to many people the struggle of the Republicans has seemed a struggle for the conditions without which the writing and reading of poetry are almost impossible in modern society." Many poets became personally involved in the war when, in 1937, the great writer Federico Garcia Lorca was murdered by fascists at the beginning of the war. His tragic death turned him into an icon for poets and artists of the time:

Labrad, amigos,
de piedra y sueño en el Alhambra,
un túmulo al poeta,
sobre una fuente donde llore el agua,
y eternamente diga:
el crimen fue en Granada, ¡en su Granada!

(Translated:
Carve, friends, from stone and dream,
in the Alhambra, a barrow for the poet,
on the water of fountains that weep
and say, for eternity:
'the crime was in Granada,
in his Granada!')
- Antonio Machado

Perhaps it is because, when faced with death and destruction, it is easier to see the world through the eyes of a poet- cherishing every moment and every detail as potentially ironically beautiful. Perhaps it is demonstrative of the basic human need to be heard, to be remembered, and to be understood. Or perhaps it is a testament to poetry's uncanny and undeniable ability to not only shine a critical yet personally accurate reflection on the state of the world, but also to carry forth the internal message of an individual in a manner that will resonate within the hearts of others even long after the gunfire has stopped. Regardless, it seems that the pen is not only mightier than the sword, but is oftentimes inspired by it.

Concord Hymn

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.
- R. W. Emerson