[lit-ideas] Re: HC Reed

  • From: "Steven G. Cameron" <stevecam@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 09:21:00 -0400

Judy Evans wrote:

> Thank you.  I didn't know about II and III till I found them on the
> web -- when I found the text of _Naming of Parts_, which may be the
> first anti-war poem I ever read.  (My uncle James taught English, he
> introduced me to Reed and some other very English - James *was* very
> English -- poets.)

**My first anti-war poem learned (we had to memorize it as well) was "In 
Flanders Fields" by John McCrae (1872-1918) -- studied just prior to 
Reed's (way back in 9th grade):

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

**Never forgot its haunting text.

TC,

/Steve Cameron, NJ

**From Emory's poetry site:

The name of John McCrae (1872-1918) may seem out of place in the 
distinguished company of World War I poets, but he is remembered for 
what is probably the single best-known and popular poem from the war, 
"In Flanders Fields." He was a Canadian physician and fought on the 
Western Front in 1914, but was then transferred to the medical corps and 
assigned to a hospital in France. He died of pneumonia while on active 
duty in 1918. His volume of poetry, In Flanders Fields and Other Poems, 
was published in 1919.

> 

> I am late writing this, I am emerging, slowly, from a
> family-visit-etc. purdah. Into a world spammed by Yost;  I may go ]
> back..
> 
> 
> (only joking, Eric!)
> 
> Judy
> 
> Thursday, April 21, 2005, 7:16:53 PM, Steven G. Cameron wrote:
> 
> 
> SGC> **With pleasure, then, here's the next two poems from Reed's Lessons of
> SGC> the War series:
> 
> SGC> TC,
> 
> 
> 


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