[New-Poetry] Where are the war poets?

[John Jeffrey]

So tonight I get an email from the Poetry Society of America about an upcoming reading.  And what are they reading?  Poetry and prose of the Spanish Civil War.

I can't take it.

I don't think that there's a lack of war poets or poems; my couplet of thoughts about this thread is that 1) there are too many poems about the war, and 2) most poems about war are gawd-awful--and, luckily, unpublished.

It's just too easy, when torn death is involved, to write something that people think is "powerful."  All you have to do is go to a handful of open mike poetry readings and you'll hear them.

     Billy's bones are burning
     a thousand miles from Mom
     
(The crowd nods and "Mmmm"s.  One woman sniffles.  Someone mumbles angrily about the President.")

 And so on, more descriptions of death, loose limbs, futility, a mention about oil, the wealthy...etc.  Usual stuff.

You don't see that sort of lurid yanking in Owen.  No need for that if you can actually write poetry.  War poems are hard to keep above the simple splashing of blood to draw a gasp or the easy political posturing (which is always assumed to posture against the war. Where are the good poems written that praise a war?  Even, say, fighting Nazi Germany?).

Anyway, have a good night all.  And remember poor Billy.  (More nodding.  "That piece was so powerful," the deaf man says.)

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