# Poetry - sub genre War Poetry



## Warrigal (Jul 20, 2015)

I was watching an episode of Doctor Who last night and it featured a line "Demons run when a good man goes to war".

I looked it up and found this poem:



> “Demons run when a good man goes to war
> Night will fall and drown the sun
> When a good man goes to war
> 
> ...



It would appear that it was written specifically for Doctor Who but I can't help feeling that it has a wider application to the concept of war itself, and what it costs morally, even when the cause is just.

I'm opening up this topic in the hope that people might post some of the deeper poems relating to war and provide others with some discussion material.

Poetry has never been my long suit but I will try to give my personal interpretation of this poem.

I have never personally experienced war. I was born in 1943 in the middle of a big one but home in Australia I was cocooned from the horrors. My dad served in New Guinea and came home again but two of his brothers lie in war cemeteries overseas. Before them their  father served in the Boer War and WW I and their grandfather sailed in the Royal Navy in a fully rigged ship.

Since then, no-one in my line has ever gone to war. I used to worry that my son might be conscripted or volunteer for military service, not so much because I was afraid of him being killed but because I dreaded what the experience might do to his inner self - his mind and his very soul.

All of the men I have referred to were/are "good men". I see the child that is lost as the innocence that good people have at their core and the night and darkness might be the dark despair and mental anguish that enters when innocence is lost.

I also interpret the poem as saying that only goodness can conquer evil, despite the terrible cost.

This topic is now wide open. All thoughts are eagerly  anticipated.


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## 3horsefarm (Jul 20, 2015)

I have had young friends come back from places like Desert Storm. They are never the same. It changes them a great deal, and seldom for the better.


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## Warrigal (Jul 20, 2015)

Looking around I found this effort by Douglas Stewart who wrote the radio play Fire on the Snow, all in verse. I studied it at school. It's about Scott's ill fated attempt on the South Pole.

This one deflates a lot of the rhetoric about war.

*Fools will tell you we stand on the threshold of light
*Douglas Stewart



It always astounds me how casually we rush to join ne wars, to crush new enemies. 
How easily we forget the last one.


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## Capt Lightning (Jul 21, 2015)

_*The Life That I Have*_  is a short poem written by Leo Marks and used as a code in the WW2.

In the war, famous poems were used to encrypt messages. This was, however, found to be insecure because enemy  cryptanalysts were able to locate the original from published sources. Marks countered this by using his own written creations. _The Life That I Have_  was an original poem composed on Christmas Eve 1943 and was originally  written by Marks in memory of his girlfriend Ruth, who had just died in a  plane crash in Canada. On 24 March 1944, the poem was issued by Marks to Violette Szabo , a French agent of SOE who was eventually captured, tortured and killed by the Nazis.

 It was made famous by its inclusion in the 1958 movie about Szabo, "Carve her name with pride"   where the poem was said to be the creation of Violette's husband  Etienne. (Marks allowed it to be used under the condition that its  author not be identified.)


The life that I have Is all that I have
And the life that I have Is yours. 
The love that I have Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours. 

A sleep I shall have A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause. 
For the peace of my years In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.


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## Warrigal (Jul 21, 2015)

Very interesting Capt Lightning. 
I enjoyed that film starring Virginia McKenna.

I did not know about the encryption efforts with poetry.


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## Warrigal (Jul 21, 2015)

A poem that reflects the reluctance of the veteran to talk about war time experiences



> *Grandpa, What Did You Do In The War?
> *
> I’d been mowing the lawn and pulling some weeds, and slipped inside for a breather
> I picked up the paper and turned on the news, not paying attention to either
> ...


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## Underock1 (Oct 23, 2015)

A good one, Warri. The more you reveal yourself through your posts, the better I like you.


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## Butterfly (Nov 19, 2015)

For me, the idea of war poetry conjures up Rupert Brooke and "there is some corner of a foreign field that is forever England."


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## vickyNightowl (Dec 19, 2015)

Has anyone read. Pat Barkers war trylogy? Its an amazing read and after I finished it ,it led me to a search on Siigfried Sassoon,which after led me to In Flanders Field. Beautiful war poetry and amazing story.


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