Week 1. "The Front"
Back to uni this week, and for the first tutorial, we focused on the poets of world war one. I found this to be very powerful poetry, and although very sad and depressing to read, i was intrigued by the first line in Hopkin's poem "No worst, there is none". This particular line for me encapsulates life during the war, and on the war front. Having studied world war one for modern history during the hsc, i also gained an insight into the life of the soldiers of the trenches, and i learned it was one of pain, suffering, and poor conditions, which broke morale very quickly. i thought i would attempt to write a poem of my own for this week, which is a response to that particular line in the poem by Hopkins.
"The Front"
Slivers of silver light from the barbed wire
beaming into the trench below.
Where i sit, cramped, attempting to jump start my imagination,
a most rare and precious commodity in this place,
where joy and hope have long-ago been bombed into oblivion
like the flowers that once grew and were replaced with a war front.
Those left to fight on show nothing more than despondency
as life on the front broken even the strongest of spirits.
I look around at the drabness, with the stench of a thousand different foul odors.
I feel no need to make a description,
Because there is nothing worth describing,
except that the mud and the incredible filth do not help matters.
At night, there is nothing to do but dream of home.
familiarlity, companionship and love.
Where joy and hope are realities
and not notions war has made us question the existence of.
We attempt to remember what life used to be like.
and share the same collective goal
to attempt to stay alive until we can resume living.