Where are the war poets? - Defence Academy of the United Kingdom

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when there is ‘a zeitgeist feeling that poetry is as much a part of modern day life as clog dancing’ 78 And more importantly why should we care if it is being written Firstly there is a moral and philosophical argument, best exemplified by Seamus Heaney. In 1990, whilst Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, he lectured on, and published, the ‘Redress of Poetry’ where the desired effect is ‘a glimpsed alternative, a revelation of potential that is denied or constantly threatened by circumstances’: If you are an English poet at the Front during World War 1, the pressure will be on you to contribute to the war effort, preferably by dehumanizing the face of the enemy. If you are an Irish poet in the wake of the 1916 executions, the pressure will be to revile the tyranny of the executing power. If you are an American poet at the height of the Vietnam War, the official expectation will be for you to wave the flag rhetorically. In these cases, to see the German soldier as a friend and secret sharer, to see the British government as a body who might keep faith, to see the South-East Asian expedition as an imperial betrayal, to do any of these things is to add a complication where the general desire is for simplification. Such countervailing gestures frustrate the common expectation of solidarity, but they do have political force. Their very power to exacerbate is one guarantee of their effectiveness. Perhaps these are the examples of what Heaney claims that poetry can represent -‘something like an exercise of the virtue of hope’. In citing the French philosopher, Simone Weil’s ‘Gravity and Grace’ in which ‘Obedience to the force of gravity (is the) greatest sin’, Heaney is making a profound argument for poetry’s fundamental relevance as a necessary balancing function in whatever passes for our fleeting reality. 79 But Why Poetry A less philosophical argument is proposed by Andrew Motion, who does not believe that we should be persuaded by the prevailing zeitgeist perception that he cites He is adamant that, despite the technological advances of the twenty-first century, poetry is fundamentally a primeval response and that it remains a relevant, valid and powerful vehicle for expression. 80 As Fiona Sampson also puts it, poetry is a way of saying to the reader or listener – ‘I’m going up a gear, pay attention’ – and this is reflected in many aspects of our lives, from the sublime to the ridiculous. 81 There is the poetry of established religion in its ritualistic and liturgical splendour. On Remembrance Day, Binyon’s Lines are solemnly intoned. Polls compete to tell us the Nation’s favourite poems. St Valentine’s Day is normally marked by the publication of yet another anthology of love poetry. London Underground carriages display poems from past and present for our amusement alongside less sophisticated advertising headlines. Greetings cards for all occasions contain verse (no matter how excruciating). Makeshift shrines appear at the sides of the roads or by blood-stained pavements marking the death of individuals, which bear flowers and hand written poems. Parish priests accommodate relatives who wish to read poetry (either well known verse or their own lines) at births, marriages and funerals. All of these separate, but connected, examples reinforce Motion’s observation. Humans need to communicate experience and, in particular, those cathartic experiences such as combat. Some choose to do so in the form of verse, consciously seeking to attach greater emphasis to their efforts. Heaney’s and Motion’s observations help us to understand why service personnel, who would not normally think to pick up a pen to address their emotions in peacetime, turn to poetry as the combat experience makes them increasingly emotionally empathetic and receptive, despite lacking finely tuned literary skills and despite the advent of the blogosphere. 78 Andrew Motion, in conversation with the author, 11 th January 2011. 79 Seamus Heaney, ‘The Redress of Poetry’, ‘Oxford Lectures’, (Faber and Faber, 1995), pages 1-16. 80 Andrew Motion, in conversation with the author, 11 th January 2011. 81 Fiona Sampson, in conversation with the author, 28 th January 2011. 17
But Does Anybody Still Read Poetry This leads us to the broader issue of whether poetry has a place in the literary marketplace today. Despite the smartly stocked, bookshopped shelves, it is true that poetry remains a niche publishing market. An established poet would be delighted if his/her most recent publication sold five thousand copies, but sales of two to three thousand copies are more realistic. More recently, although there was a high profile launch for ‘Laurels & Donkeys’ in Portcullis House, its subsequent sales have been minimal. We might deduce that the audience for poetry remains limited at best – and at a time when a slim volume of fifty or so pages costs £7.99, one could infer that people would rather spend their limited cash on other higher priority items. But too much attention on sales figures does, however, overlook other media through which people can access poetry. The online website ‘Poetry Archive’ tells a different story. It receives two hundred and fifty thousand hits every month (a hit being measured by someone spending at least thirty minutes on the site) implying that approximately two million pages of poetry are being read on line at this one site every month. The www.warpoetry.co.uk website receives an average of sixty thousand visitors every month and last year that rose to one hundred thousand during November. The Poetry Society quarterly review sells approximately fifteen thousand copies every month. Further the Poetry Society receives something in the order of forty thousand ‘amateur’ poems for review and potential publication every year. 82 PROPOSITIONS This section will now attempt to address the ‘so what’ question that must inevitably occur to even the most casual reader. Thus far the dissertation has sought to demonstrate through fact and analysis that there is a small, but nonetheless relevant body of contemporary poetic work that meets a broad definition of war poetry. It has argued that this body of work, produced from a variety of diffuse sources, represents an important element in the continuing interaction of man and his relationship with war and that there are distinct roles and functions for war poetry in today’s society that other media can not solely fulfil. Moreover, arguments have been offered to show that poetry, in its widest sense, remains a powerful, relevant and necessary medium of discourse for which there is an audience. What follows is now a set of propositions that, if implemented (or, at the very least, considered), might better encourage, support and sustain today’s war poetry, in all its guises, ensuring that it is given the profile it deserves. The Deployed War Poet: Pour Encourager Les Autres If there are some fundamental hurdles of artistic integrity and credibility to overcome in order to allow our established poets to write convincingly about today’s wars, then perhaps the time has come to consider the deployment of poets to our war zones. There are no end of examples of writers, film crews and documentary makers being given access to deployed British troops in order to portray their story. MOD policy has been to embed journalists with front line troops and to facilitate those projects, which it believes will communicate its messages accurately to a wide domestic audience. The example was also cited earlier of the MOD’s continued collaboration with the IWM and its War Artist programme. It might be deduced that the MOD does not necessarily view a poet as the ideal vehicle for its propaganda, but more a ‘wasted slot at the cost of someone else’. 83 Perhaps this helps to explain why a proposal that Motion (the then Poet Laureate) accompany the CGS on one of his many visits to Afghanistan in 2009 failed to materialise. It might also shed light on why a project between Simon Armitage (cited earlier for the publication of ‘The Not Dead’) and a film-maker Roger Courtier to visit Afghanistan in 2009 to produce a one hour film titled ‘Behind the Lines’ was 82 Andrew Motion, Fiona Sampson, Jon Jeffcock and Jon Stallworthy, in conversations separately with the author, on 11 th January, 28 th January and 1 st February 2011 respectively. 83 An MOD official, in conversation with the author, 14 th January 2011. 18
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Page 5 and 6: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Today’s wars in
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Page 9 and 10: definition from Clausewitz. His uni
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Page 19: defined as ‘the writing and readi
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Page 25 and 26: Hugh Haughton sets out the argument
Page 27 and 28: BIBLIOGRAPHY Books Armitage, Simon,
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Page 31 and 32: When the dust of peace has settled
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Where are the war poets? - Defence Academy of the United Kingdom

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