War Poets

Each poet had their own way in describing their experience in the war. Isaac Rosenberg was especially descriptive in Louse Hunting. Rosenberg can be humorous at times, but I did not find this poem comical. This poem was actually pretty disturbing. I imagined soldiers suddenly waking up and discovering that they are infested with lice. Rosenberg left me with the impression that the lice were so bad that there was no way to stop or control them. The soldiers were now fighting a war against the lice, which would ultimately drive them absolutely mad.

After reading Dead Man's Dump I could visualize a battlefield where there is nothing but dead bodies. Surrounding the dead bodies were a few survivors waiting for the wagon to save them. You can see the wagon driving over all the dead bodies looking for any survivors. Rosenberg goes in great detail to describe this horrific scene. "A man's brains splattered on a stretcher-bearer's face." This gives the reader a vivid picture of just how awful it was. Just as the wagon reaches the survivor he takes his last breath. I knew this would be how it ended. This is the most descriptive poems I have read. I found a video on youtube of Rosenberg reading his poem. It's pretty chilling! YouTube - Isaac Rosenberg "Dead man's dump" Poem animation WW1

The War Poets

I'm not exactly sure if I'm doing this, or posting this, in the right place- but I'll give it a shot!

In my previous class with Dr. Johnson we studied the war poets a bit and watched a few war videos. The video that stuck out in my mind the most was the one discussing shell shock. I was so interested in the subject that I wrote one of my semester papers on the awfulness of it all. I feel because of this paper I am able to relate more to the horrors of WWI and therefore connect with the War poetry better.

I don’t have a favorite War Poet out of the group. From each there are poems I enjoy, and poems I could live without (sometimes I only like key lines in a poem as well).

In Siegfried Sassoon’s poem “The Rear-Guard” I really enjoy line 7 which says: The rosy gloom of battle overhead. This is an interesting line for me. When I read “rosy gloom” it immediately conjures up a vision of blood everywhere- which of course is gloomy.

Welcome

This is our class blog site.  I will be expecting each member of the class to post his or her comments about the readings here each week.  You can react to the poetry, ask questions about it, compare and contrast poets, evaluate individual poems, and/or describe why you like or can't stand a poet or an individual poem.  You can also post pictures or links to other sites that you find that can help us to understand the poetry.  Have fun!  Dr. Johnson