stephen crane's war is kind....? i think it would be very difficult to write a poem about war and have it be upbeat.perhaps it's been done but i wouldn't be too interested to read it i don't think.technically it might be well written but it seems like it would be bullshit.....some musical numbers can be inspireing like garryowen.but even music would be differant after a firefight....eric burden and the animals had a good song in the summer of 68 called sky pilot....and things happen in war like taking pictures of the dead and such.seeing shit day after day and the heat ,the noises and like was said above the smells.it's not good,hard to understand it sometimes but even good people can get pushed over the edge....but i think i know what you are trying to get at.perhaps something by a national poet who tries to put history into perspective for people.
No change there then... Rather than shouting at everyone for not obeying your rules for what you want the thread to contain, why don't you find and post some examples of the kind of pro-war poetry you're yearning for? There may well be one or two examples, but they will be the rare exception. Classical heroic poetry tends to celebrate the nobility of battle, but poetry written by soldier poets, which accounts for much of the war poetry from WWI onwards tends to focus on the futility and tragedy of war, for the reasons I've already explained. That written by professional poetsw ho haven't directly experienced war themselves will be the same for much the same reasons.
I'm only shouting at those who are a little deaf. I'm not yearning for anything...apart from sex with a glamour model. I am looking for more of the type of poem I was looking for.
of the many subjects i know very little about one is norse mythology.but i remember reading that when one dies in battle he goes to valhalla which i always pictured as a large banquet hall with all the food and drink etc that a person would ever want.i should research it more which i will but i wondered if this was the kind of literature we were looking for.epic poetry ? how about beowulf ?i read some of it in high school but i don't remember it too well.
Yeah. Epic would be nice. Hopefully something contemporary. Nothing like this: "we bathed our hands in blood and we had sexy time with our wives"... "Bush was the greatest thing since sliced bread...Anybody who say, no, is dead" It is a lot harder than I thought.
An understatement. "Men, women, children, animals/slash them to pieces all alike/precision bombing, smart missiles/you are Jack the Ripper on a surgical strike." "As men march off to war/so bravely for our freedom/the students smoke their dope/and liberals whine like women." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/2821455.stm Poets for the War (Epic Fail) Just for a change. I wondered if poets were writing that type of poem about Iraq/Afghanistan...or recent conflicts. I'm certainly not looking for poems like ^ that though. Not particularly.
Having seen you post on this forum for the past four or five years under different guises quite a lot of the time about war, I'd say yes to that...
Starting several threads asking for poetry which glorifies war and shouting down people who post poetry which talks about the futility of war indicates that there's something going on, I would suggest:smilielol5:
PHRASE BOOK Jo Shapcott 1992 I'm standing here inside my skin, which will do for a Human Remains Pouch for the moment. Look down there (up here). Quickly. Slowly. This is my own front room where I'm lost in the action, live from a war, on screen. I am an Englishwoman, I don't understand you. What's the matter? You are right. You are wrong. Things are going well (badly). Am I disturbing you? TV is showing bliss as taught to pilots: Blend, Low silhouette, Irregular shape, Small, Secluded. (Please write it down. Please speak slowly.) Bliss is how it was in this very room. when I raised my body to his mouth, when he even balanced me in the air, or at least I thought so and yes the pilots say yes they have caught it through the Side-Looking Airborne Radar, and through the J-Stars. I am expecting a gentleman (a young gentleman, two gentlemen, some gentlemen). Please send him (them) up at once. This is really beautiful. Yes they have seen us, the pilots, in the Kill Box on their screens, and played the routine for getting us Stealthed, that is, Cleansed, to you and me, Taken Out. They know how to move into a single room like that, to send in with Pinpoint Accuracy, a hundred Harms. I have two cases and a cardboard box. There is another bag there. I cannot open my case - look out, the lock is broken. Have I done enough? Bliss the pilots say is for evasion and escape. What's love in all this debris? Just one person pounding another into dust, into dust. I do not know the word for it yet. Where is the British Consulate? Please explain. What does it mean? What must I do? Where can I find? What have I done? I have done nothing. Let me pass please. I am an Englishwoman. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...war-poetry-in-not-an-anachronism-1533837.html
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=373234&page=2 Then only a brief while ago I said: Nothing like this: "we bathed our hands in blood and we had sexy time with our wives"... "Bush was the greatest thing since sliced bread...Anybody who say, no, is dead" I've only really started one. One was hijacked. So I copied it to here instead. I've never said I wanted peoms that glorified war. I "shouted down" Lunar' because he basically didn't have any interest in posting anything I had asked for...he didn't bother to read my first thread and then didn't bother to read it when I posted the same thing here.
personally i think there's a little too much concern about staying on topic on these threads.lots of people myself included brought forth some great poems.many i had never read before.i even brought up some i thought were good having nothing to do with war.some of us tried giving personal experiences to go along with the thoughts in the poems.i thought the threads were pretty darn interesting.some of us make wise ass remarks but so what ? i do in real life too.those are my thoughts on it.
In the other thread one person was being a jerk off - as per usual.. More than one person hadn't read my original post. I got peeved with Lunar' because he didn't seem to even want to entertain the idea of sticking to the topic... I don't mind a little deviation...I never said anything to you did I. Infact I posted a few that you mentioned.
Poems about war are depressing because war is depressing. I've posted some examples of poems that glorify war in other threads, but even those seem to have some element of sadness to them. (such as "The Charge of the Light Brigade" which seems to glorify war, but at the same time speaks of heinous combat and death. It doesn't necessarily glorify war, but instead romanticizes the battle in question) Today's poetry isn't that good to begin with, we are moving away from a literal tradition just as we are moving away from a human-engaged type of war. Most of the true destruction in Iraq, per example, is done by bombs, and not necessarily by humans. As people, we no longer really witness the horror of war... so there is nothing to really glorify. It's hard to write an epic about the unmanned Drone which bombs Iraqui villages while being piloted by some Air Force pilot sitting infront of a computer in South Dakota. At the same time, the sad poems that speak about the futility of war are no longer based on the battlefield, like the poems of WWI you mentioned... instead, they are speaking in generalities or referring to the depression and post traumatic stress that war causes. Poetry is dying, sadly enough, in the general sense... but war is changing, and soon enough it will be too machinated, distant, and static to even have a single poem written about it.
Alright, so I have now gone back and read the OP. I understand what you were looking for in the way of a response. Sorry Odon. Oh yea, and for calling you a thread nazi.
