Poems for peace
Fiona Dowson reflects on a volume of poems that explores universal truths
There’s something about poetry which reaches directly into the heart in a way which no other medium can. Poems For Peace is a collection which spans a diverse range of poets, each with a completely different style.
The common thread which binds this work together, isn’t just the theme of the hope of peace becoming the norm but rather a horror of war and the effect it has, not just on soldiers but also their children and the consciousness of whole nations.
Of all the poems it is Philip M Dunkerley’s ‘White Magic’ which is my personal favourite. Written about the three hundred or so coffins which have been carried through Royal Wootton Bassett, each carrying the empty shell of a wasted young life, it is written from personal experience and carries with it the sense of hopelessness at the juxtaposition of military decorum and the anger of grief.
A flag-draped box emerges from the plane,
Slowly; we see the drama played again.
Six strong men walking rigidly in time,
A story not repeating, but in rhyme
With what has, all too often, gone before:
Another coffin coming out the door
Of a huge plane. Six sad men hold upon
Reluctant shoulders, high, another one
Of their own number, breathing now no more.
Another brave young victim of the war…
It’s a theme which connects this whole volume, each of the poems bearing a burden of sadness.
It would be easy to dismiss this as being unnecessary to 2016 (would that it were) if it wasn’t for the underlying need to remember those who have died.
As we live through four years of the centenary of the ‘War to End All Wars’ it’s inevitable that there are poems about the first world war.
Russell J Turner’s ‘Whistling Men’ gives a snapshot of the optimism of those who answered Herbert Kitchener’s call while Leanne Moden mourns the loss of the three hundred plus British and Commonwealth soldiers executed for desertion in ‘Witness’.
…Mortar-worn, I ran from hell
And that’s my only sin.
I have moved among the dead
And witnessed everything.
So fasten feathers to my coat –
I’ll scarcely feel the pin.
For I have moved among the dead,
And witnessed everything…
The last words really need to go to Benjamin Zephaniah: ‘These poets are learning from the lessons of the past, they are exploring the universal truths.’
For further information: www.suffolkskald.webs.com
Poems For Peace edited by Poppy Kleiser with a foreword by Benjamin Zephaniah is published by Chandler Press at £12.99. ISBN: 9780956828231.
