"Wisdom," by Siegfried Sassoon

Poets Born In September

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Who are/were some poets born in September? I'm glad you asked.

Theodore Storm, German poet. What a great last name for a poet. "Hi. Storm's the name, and poetry's the game."

T.S. Eliot, American and British poet, also known as Tse Tse [fly]--one of Ezra Pound's nicknames for him; and as Old Possum.

Robert Burns, poetic king of Scottish poetry and song. Allesandro Tassoni--Italian, as you might have guessed.

Siegfried Sassoon, British poet and "trench poet" from the Great War. Reed Whittemore--also a translator, if memory serves.

William Carlos Williams, American (of course), and one of those poets from whom other poets may learn a lot (in my opinion).

Michael Ondaatje, Canadian poet and novelist. He published a book of poems with "rat jelly" in the title. How great is that?

Jaroslav Seifert, Czech poet. I wonder if George Siefert, former coach of the San Francisco 49ers, is related to him.

Elinor Wylie--American poet, novelist, and nonfiction writer.

And Edith Sitwell, officially Dame Edith Sitwell, British poet. My favorite poem by her may be "Still Falls The Rain," and I have a recording of her reading it.

So much depends upon the red wheel barrow and on September poetic birthdays. I also have a brother who was born in September. The gift is in the mail, bro.

One from Edward Thomas

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*(image: Edward Thomas)
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The poetry of Edward Thomas (1878-1917) is often grouped with that of other World War I British poets like Wilfred Owen and Siegried Sassoon, chiefly because Thomas was killed in the war (he volunteered for the army, as he was too old to be drafted), but also because he did write a few poems when he was serving in France, before he was killed by artillery-fire.

But most of his poetry concerns rural Britain, is closely observed, and--although it deploys conventional rhyme and meter--is plainspoken. Thomas made his living chiefly as a "literary journalist"--writing reviews, editing anthologies, etc., and he was an early champion of Robert Frost's poetry. Thomas liked the way Frost had ignored a lot of conventional poetic diction and written precisely but plainly. Thomas himself first published his poetry under a pen-name. Then, after Thomas's death, Walter de la Mare put together a collection. I've been reading a relatively new paperback edition from Handsdel Books, with a nice introduction by Peter Sacks.

Here's a short poem related to May from the book:

The Cherry Trees

by Edward Thomas

The cherry trees bend over and are shedding
On the old road where all that passed are dead,
Their petals, strewing the grass as for a wedding
This early May morn when there is none to wed.

Did I mention that, like Frost, Thomas could be a bit glum, even before World War I came along?

A Tough Poem From Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Sassoon was among the so-called "trench poets" of World War I, and he not only survived the war but lived until 1967, having been born in 1886. One wonders what he thought of the Viet Nam war.

One of his toughest war-poems, in my opinion, is the one below. It isn't remotely as famous as Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est," and it isn't tough in the same way; the poem by Owen, in addition to skewering easy notions of patriotism and of dying for one's country, presents a graphic "battle" scene--which is mainly a scene of soldiers being hit by poison gas. Sassoon's poem is tough because it is directed at--and gives hard advice--to one who grieves. It is one of the most emotionally unflinching poems I know. If one didn't have the sense that Sassoon had earned the right to compose such a poem and the sense that what he writes is true, one might be tempted to think of the poem as cruel. It is a hard poem, a tough poem, certainly a sobering poem about war--but not a cruel one. It is from his book Picture Show (1920).

Reconciliation

By Siegfried Sassoon

WHEN you are standing at your hero’s grave,
Or near some homeless village where he died,
Remember, through your heart’s rekindling pride,
The German soldiers who were loyal and brave.

Men fought like brutes; and hideous things were done;
And you have nourished hatred, harsh and blind.
But in that Golgotha perhaps you’ll find
The mothers of the men who killed your son.