"far slower and more reluctant..." Balls. Australia has more memorials on the western front per capita than any other country. There is the Villers-Bretonneux national memorial (built at the same time as the Canadian national memorial on Vimy Ridge), the Australian Corps memorial at Hamel (admittedly only opened in 1998), and all five divisions have individual memorials built shortly after the war - few British and no Canadian divisions have similar. And a variety of more specific memorials. So, balls.
But thank you for those Owen poems. The first is...I hesitate to say favourite... but the one that is just as appalling on the hundredth read as the first. In reply, I humbly submit the only poem that appears in Journey's End by R.C.Sherriff, also a WW1 veteran (we'll try not to hold Goodbye, Mr Chips against him): 'Tell me, mother, what is that That looks like strawberry jam?' 'Hush, hush, my dear; 'tis only Pa Run over by a tram.'
"far slower and more reluctant..." Balls. Australia has more memorials on the western front per capita than any other country. There is the Villers-Bretonneux national memorial (built at the same time as the Canadian national memorial on Vimy Ridge), the Australian Corps memorial at Hamel (admittedly only opened in 1998), and all five divisions have individual memorials built shortly after the war - few British and no Canadian divisions have similar. And a variety of more specific memorials. So, balls.
ReplyDeleteBut thank you for those Owen poems. The first is...I hesitate to say favourite... but the one that is just as appalling on the hundredth read as the first. In reply, I humbly submit the only poem that appears in Journey's End by R.C.Sherriff, also a WW1 veteran (we'll try not to hold Goodbye, Mr Chips against him):
'Tell me, mother, what is that
That looks like strawberry jam?'
'Hush, hush, my dear; 'tis only Pa
Run over by a tram.'
Pa wasn't much of a 'Dodger' then.
DeleteAnd it is a great pity, IMHO, that the Owen poems aren't more widely and more frequently published. Even though he was a 'pom'.