Three War Poems -- a National Poetry Month post

[kellyrfineman]

As promised in yesterday's post, here's a look at Wilfred Owen's famous poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est". The title of the poem comes from one of Horace's Odes, written in Lattin (of course): Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, which is quoted in full at the end of the poem. The translation for the Latin is, roughly, "It is sweet and seemly to die

Comments

[bluemalibu]

That is horribly sad :(

I am so tired of war

and pain
very tired
of
it

[kellyrfineman]

It is horribly sad -- it's the sort of poem that sticks in your head forever and ever. Not most of the words of it, really, just the horror of it. Still, sometimes it's a good thing to look at the bad things.

[slatts]

This first poem made me think of Dylan's "John Brown". I saw him perform it once. The lyrics are haunting. Very visual for me

[kellyrfineman]

Wow, that is truly gripping.

[slatts]

Google bobdylan.com and go to lyrics for whole song of John Brown...it's a classic Dylan epic so I only picked the last verses for this....

There's something so horrible about war in general without saying but WWI with it's calvary against tanks and gas warfare has something so especially cruel about it...(that and the American Civil War, imo)....Dylan's piece seems to describe a WWI type setting as your first example did specifically and both create images so clear and horrific to me....