Many poets have written effectively about war. Randall Jarrell's best known poem is his Death of the Ball Turret Gunner with its horrifying last line.
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/death-ball-turret-gunner
Here is a quieter Jarrell poem, The Breath of Night.
The moon rises. The red cubs rolling
In the ferns by the rotten oak
Stare over a marsh and a meadow
To the farm's white wisp of smoke.
A spark burns, high in heaven.
Deer thread the blossoming rows
Of the old orchard, rabbits
Hop by the well-curb. The cock crows
From the tree by the widow's walk;
Two stars in the trees to the west,
Are snared, and an owl's soft cry
Runs like a breath through the forest.
Here too, though death is hushed, though joy
Obscures, like night, their wars,
The beings of this world are swept
By the Strife that moves the stars.
In this lovely lyric, war steals in at the end, quietly. The poem is almost a lullaby up until the 13th line where it turns to a statement. There is foreshadowing all through the poem: "rotten oak," "wisp of smoke," "cock crows," "widow's walk," stars... / are snared."
See if you can write a quiet anti-war (or anti-racism, anti-climate change, anti-?) poem that takes us by the hand and leads us gently to the edge of the abyss.
Not a link of the week, but a poetry give-away. A copy of the chapbook Dona Nobis Pacem: Grant Us Peace, published in 2006 by the Lane Literary Guild, will be sent (for $3 s&h) to the first ten people who ask by emailing me. You can contact me by clicking anywhere you see "tonipoet".
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/death-ball-turret-gunner
Here is a quieter Jarrell poem, The Breath of Night.
The moon rises. The red cubs rolling
In the ferns by the rotten oak
Stare over a marsh and a meadow
To the farm's white wisp of smoke.
A spark burns, high in heaven.
Deer thread the blossoming rows
Of the old orchard, rabbits
Hop by the well-curb. The cock crows
From the tree by the widow's walk;
Two stars in the trees to the west,
Are snared, and an owl's soft cry
Runs like a breath through the forest.
Here too, though death is hushed, though joy
Obscures, like night, their wars,
The beings of this world are swept
By the Strife that moves the stars.
In this lovely lyric, war steals in at the end, quietly. The poem is almost a lullaby up until the 13th line where it turns to a statement. There is foreshadowing all through the poem: "rotten oak," "wisp of smoke," "cock crows," "widow's walk," stars... / are snared."
See if you can write a quiet anti-war (or anti-racism, anti-climate change, anti-?) poem that takes us by the hand and leads us gently to the edge of the abyss.
Not a link of the week, but a poetry give-away. A copy of the chapbook Dona Nobis Pacem: Grant Us Peace, published in 2006 by the Lane Literary Guild, will be sent (for $3 s&h) to the first ten people who ask by emailing me. You can contact me by clicking anywhere you see "tonipoet".
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