{"id":741,"date":"2012-11-13T22:18:11","date_gmt":"2012-11-14T05:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/somewhatlogically.com\/?p=741"},"modified":"2012-11-13T22:18:11","modified_gmt":"2012-11-14T05:18:11","slug":"the-eleventh-hour-of-the-eleventh-day-of-the-eleventh-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/somewhatlogically.com\/?p=741","title":{"rendered":"The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was born in England after WWII, and I still remember the paper red poppies, sold as the remembrance of Armistice Day, celebrated by Veterans Day in the U.S. \u00a0 I wrote this piece several years ago, and somehow, on this most recent Veterans Day, the realities of war seemed lost in the force of present events. \u00a0Yet we should remember another force; the words of the soldier poets that speak to a connected individuality deep within us all.<\/p>\n

Until WW I, poems glorified war.\u00a0 Minds at War, The Poetry and Experience of the First World War<\/em> covers the change from the nationalistic enthusiasm of Rupert Brooke with the patriotic opening lines of Soldier, <\/em>“If I should die, think only this of me:\/ That there’s some corner of a foreign field\/That is for ever England<\/em>.”, to Wilfred Owen\u2019s immortal Dulce et Decorum Est<\/em>, an unbelievably horrific description of a young soldier too slow to put on his mask in a poison gas attack.\u00a0 The title and the Latin in the last lines come from an ode by the Roman poet, Horace<\/p>\n

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>To children ardent for some desperate glory,<\/em><\/p>\n

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est<\/em><\/p>\n

Pro patria mori.<\/em><\/p>\n

(literally, “Sweet and honorable it is, to die for the fatherland”).<\/p>\n

The American school of WW II poetry had been ignored until Harvey Shapiro, former editor of The New York Times Magazine<\/em>, published Poets of World War II<\/em>.\u00a0 Shapiro, who flew 35 missions in Italy in WWII, served as tail gunner in a B-17.\u00a0 The poems selected offer a wide range of perspectives.\u00a0 Defeat<\/em> by Witter Bynner, describes how the German prisoners in Texas were treated with more respect than the black G.I.\u2019s\u00a0\u00a0 He gives us one of the few widely read and anthologized poems of the war, Death of the Ball Turret Gunner<\/em> by Randall Jarrell<\/p>\n

From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose. <\/em><\/p>\n

Jarrell\u2019s notes on the poem; “A ball turret was a Plexiglas sphere set into the belly of a B-17 or B-24, and inhabited by two .50 caliber machine-guns and one man, a short small man. When this gunner tracked with his machine guns a fighter attacking his bomber from below, he revolved with the turret; hunched upside-down in his little sphere, he looked like the foetus in the womb. The fighters which attacked him were armed with cannon firing explosive shells. The hose was a steam hose.”<\/p>\n

Perhaps no soldier poet anthology better captures the Vietnam war than\u00a0 Unaccustomed Mercy, Soldier Poets of the Vietnam War<\/em>, edited by W.D. Ehrhart, which contains several works by Horace Coleman.\u00a0 However, Coleman\u2019s hard to find collection of his own poems, In the Grass<\/em>, is the most powerful as he speaks of combat, yet brings the war back to America in Still Life with Dead Hippie. Kent State, May 4, 1970.<\/em> \u00a0His poems also look to the future.\u00a0 Writing about an event in which protesters, including John Kerry, threw their medals back at the government and demanded better treatment for veterans, Coleman\u2019s In the Grass <\/em>gives us Notes for the Veteran’s War Protest<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ralph: concerning plans for the local march,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0the following:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>1. Saw the weary demonstration in Washington,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0the burning faces of our sad boy warriors<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0throwing their medals at the president.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>2. Think we should emulate but not copy, so:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0when the delegation arrives at the state capitol<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0first read the petition:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0“We are not afraid to kill. We are sorry we murdered<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0our souls. We did as told but we learned how to say NO!<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Stop it. Or we will stop you. Don’t resist. You can’t stop<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0the ghosts you made of us.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Next, have those who lost legs crawl forward and neatly<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0stack them. Then bowl the skull of your best killed buddy<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0down the aisle.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Finally, have the blind push the quadruplegics forward<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0(they will have knives in their teeth to give to the legislators<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0to use on themselves). We leave. If they don’t use them we<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0come back.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Horace<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>PS. Save the instructions for your grandkids. They’ll come in handy.<\/em><\/p>\n

Iraq is producing its own poetry, personified in Here, Bullet<\/em> by Brian Turner, who served a year as an infantry team leader in Iraq in 2003.\u00a0 One poem I simply couldn\u2019t finish, as I knew where it was going. but here\u2019s the title piece, which Turner wrote, put in a plastic bag, and carried in his breast pocket throughout his tour of duty.<\/p>\n

Here, Bullet<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

If a body is what you want,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0then here is bone and gristle and flesh.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Here is the clavicle-snapped wish,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0the aorta\u2019s opened valves, the leap<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0thought makes at the synaptic gap.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0that inexorable flight, that insane puncture<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0into heat and blood. And I dare you to finish<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0what you\u2019ve started. Because here, Bullet,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0here is where I complete the word you bring<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0hissing through the air, here is where I moan<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0the barrel\u2019s cold esophagus, triggering<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0my tongue\u2019s explosives for the rifling I have<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0inside of me, each twist of the round<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0spun deeper, because here, Bullet,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0here is where the world ends, every time.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>These books diverge completely from the war visions of politicians.\u00a0 In her essay, The Magic of Images: Word and Picture in a Media Age, <\/em>Camille Paglia notes that it essential for the word and the book to mediate the never ending assault of new media advertising and propaganda so we can truly comprehend our world.\u00a0 The soldier poets\u2019 words do just that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Copyright reserved by the authors of the poems.<\/p>\n

Minds at War\u00a0 Roberts (ed)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ISBN 0 952 8969 0 7<\/p>\n

Poems of World War II\u00a0 Shapiro (ed) \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0ISBN-10: 1931082332<\/p>\n

Unaccustomed Mercy Ehrhart (ed)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0ISBN-13: 978-0896721906<\/p>\n

In the Grass\u00a0\u00a0 Coleman , Horace\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ISBN: 1885215-14-2<\/p>\n

Here, Bullet\u00a0\u00a0 Turner, Brian \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ISBN: 1-882295-55-2<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was born in England after WWII, and I still remember the paper red poppies, sold as the remembrance of Armistice Day, celebrated by Veterans Day in the U.S. \u00a0 I wrote this piece several years ago, and somehow, on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/somewhatlogically.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/somewhatlogically.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/somewhatlogically.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somewhatlogically.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somewhatlogically.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/somewhatlogically.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":753,"href":"https:\/\/somewhatlogically.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions\/753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/somewhatlogically.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somewhatlogically.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somewhatlogically.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}