Poets and World War I

Dear students & readers of this blog,

Last Nov 11 we commemorated the anniversary of the end of World War I, one of the most devastating conflicts in the story of humankind. On such a date, people in Britain celebrate Remembrance Day, to remember those who served and died in the war. The school, and most particularly, the School Library, wants to join the celebrations, by remembering the writers and poets that were involved in the conflict. And we're going to do it in the form of a POETRY READING SESSION next Dec 3. (Please check the school website for more info).

Do you fancy poetry? If not, would you like to discover it?

Before going on to showing you the poems that will be read, you might find this video interesting. It's well-known how afraid we seem to be of poetry. It seems to be something so far from us, so conceptual and difficult to understand. If you watch the video below, you will see that it is not as bad as it seems:

Here are the poems we are going to read. Take some time to get familiar with them:
 

TWO FUSILIERS

by Robert Graves.

And have we done with War at last?
Well, we've been lucky devils both,
And there's no need of pledge or oath
To bind our lovely friendship fast,
By firmer stuff
Close bound enough.

By wire and wood and stake we're bound,
By Fricourt and by Festubert,
By whipping rain, by the sun's glare,
By all the misery and loud sound,
By a Spring day,
By Picard clay.

Show me the two so closely bound
As we, by the red bond of blood,
By friendship, blossoming from mud,
By Death: we faced him, and we found
Beauty in Death,
In dead men breath.

 

SUICIDE IN THE TRENCHES

by Siegfried Sassoon

I knew a simple soldier boy

Who grinned at life in empty joy,

Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,

And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,

With crumps and lice and lack of rum,

He put a bullet through his brain.

No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye

Who cheer when soldier lads march by,

Sneak home and pray you'll never know

The hell where youth and laughter go. 

 

THE SOLDIER

by Rupert Brooke

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England's, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

This is how the Tower of London looked like until not very long ago.

As you can see, its moat was flooded with ceramic poppies. As you may know, the poppy is the symbol of the British Legion, and people wear one on Remembrance Day to remember those who died to guarantee freedom and democracy in the world. If you want to learn more, please click here.

For advanced students, here you have the chance to practise your listening comprehension skills but watching this and answering the questions below:

Questions:

1. Why did this initiative start?
2. When did this idea start?
3. How much did they collect last year?
4. How many collectors do they have?
5. According to the two male interviewees, what does poppy symbolize?


For the key, click here.

(Thanks to Laura Parrilla Gómez, from EOI Constantina, for sending this to me!!)

Lest we forget!