VE Day 80th Anniversary

                                         Poem After War -Henry Treece 

                         

 Not sure how to mark this anniversary, but thought a short poem would be appropriate. It is worth recalling that as well as VE Day being a day of celebration for many people, there were those who fought and did not feel like joining the party. 

 Poem After War -Henry Treece ( from The Haunted Garden, collection of poetry published 1947)

" Fearful that summer will forget the frost
And boys the body broken on a stake,
We stand. And who shall blame us if we take
The sword again to bring to life the past?
Future can only live by death of fears,
By love as effortless as lilt of birds;
To learn such love , and hear such flaming words 
Our dead would wait another thousand years."

Henry Treece found the night of VE Day difficult :

" As I walk on, I cannot help thinking that before the Japanese are defeated, war will have taken perhaps eight years of my life. May I can just afford to lose eight years; there are many thousands who can't though. As I turn into my road, I pass a soldier staggering along with his girl. She is wearing a comical coloured hat, bearing the words; YOU'VE HAD IT, BIG BOY! I can't feeling how very true these words are for so many of us ." HEWISON 

Born 1911, Henry Treece served  RAF Intelligence  in World War 2, and was associated with the New Apocalypse poets of the 1940's, who became one of the most maligned and unpopular posse of published poets by the mid 1950's onward. They were devotees of Dylan Thomas, though Thomas himself largely kept his distance. The group name was taken from D H Lawrence's work Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation, written in 1929-1930, whilst the writings of Freud and the art of the Surrealists were influences. The emphasis was very much on the Poet as an individual creating their own myth, disconnected from social reality. 

The Haunted Garden from 1947 is quite a bleak collection.Been out of print for ages. There is a great sense of mourning in many poems, and an absence of triumphalism or even celebration that the War was over.  In Poem After War  there is a feeling of that the sword will be picked up again, conflict would re-emerge, unless something radically changes in the condition of humanity.  

There is an attempt to recreate Civil War poet Richard Lovelace's poem Song to Lucasta Going to the Warres (sic) . Lovelace was on the defeated Royalist side. Treece's poem To Lucasta while at the Wars  is one of the weaker offerings in The Haunted Garden . An untitled poem which follows from this collection is now usually referred to by its first line  Who murdered the Minutes , also dealing with lost time. 

" Who murdered the minutes,

The bright golden minutes, the minutes of youth;

I,said the Soldier dressed in his red coat,

I with my trumpet, my sword and my flag.... " 

            This poem was set to music for Joan Baez's album 'Baptism Journey through Our Time ' in 1968 , released at the height of the anti-Vietnam War protests. ('Baptism' also included Baez's take on Henry Treece's quite enchanting poems The Magic Wood, Oh,Little Child,  and a very chilling recital of Wilfred Owen's Parable of the Old Man and the Young) 

Henry Treece became less of a published poet, a school teacher, and a prolific writer of historical novel for children until his death in 1966. He is now most remembered for the latter. Sadly his contributions to compiling anthologies of poetry and short stories such as the Transformations  ( with Stefan Schiminski ) annually 1943-1947)  series, and Air Force Poetry ( with John Pudney 1944) are often overlooked. 

Picture Credit : 

Somerset Place, Bath 1942,  John Piper , Courtesy of The Tate , in the public domain.

More information

Books

'Under Siege- Literary Life in London 1939-1945' Robert HEWISON, Wiedenfield & Nicolson, 1978

'The Haunted Gardens' , Henry TREECE , Faber & Faber 1947

Youtube

Who Murdered The Minutes   Joan Baez's version of Henry Treece's poem, from 'Baptism' 1968

Previous Post 

Air Raid  Poem by Henry Treece, post from this blog in 2016 

Walking Wounded -novel by Sheila Llewellyn and the World War 2 Poetry connection

                              Northfield Hospital, near Birmingham, 1947                                  

                                         The title Walking Wounded is from Vernon Scannell's poem of this name, and  was also he title of his 1965 poetry collection. James Andrew Taylor also named his 2013 Scannell biography Walking Wounded. The main setting for the novel is  Northfield Hospital,Hollymoor near Birmingham, in 1947 -with flashbacks to the War years The institution was famous for its more experimental  treatments for traumatised servicemen, first tried there in World War 1. The patients were still deemed to be serving in the military whilst resident at the hospital. 

Walking Wounded (extract) Vernon Scannell 

"Absent-minded guns still sighed and thumped
And then they came, the walking wounded,
Straggling the road like convicts loosely chained,
Dragging at ankles exhaustion and despair.
Their heads were weighted down by last night's lead,
And eyes still drank the dark........

....Imagination pauses and returns

To see them walking still, but multiplied

In thousands now." 

The novel begins with a scene from the War in the Far East where veterans recall how the army mules had the vocal chords cut to stop them braying which risked giving away the soldiers' position. The theme of not being able to voice war experience runs paramount. 

 The lead character, David Reece is fictional. A young  journalist for the 'Manchester Guardian',we learn a lot about his bookish background,including his first encounter with the  reality of war during the great bombing raid of Manchester on 22nd and 23rd December 1940. Then his war service in Burma is gone into, where he and his friend Louie experience the full impact of the conflict. Louie finds coping mechanisms whilst David struggles. Upon returning to Manchester 1947 to the post-war deprivation and rationing, David finally snaps. A  clash in a pub with an annoying little spiv leads to him totally over reacting and committing a violent assault. The court sends David to Northfield as an alternative to prison. It's not clear whether this would have actually happened as David was no longer a serving soldier.  

Soon after, Vernon Scannell appears at Northfield- under his real name, John Bain. ( His first collection of poetry would be published in 1948 and Scannell later became a leading figure in post-War  and  World War 2 orientated poetry). He was regularly in trouble with the military authorities for going AWOL including a spell in prison during the North Africa campaign for deserting whilst the enemy were retreating, it is no surprise that on VE Day, Scannell simply left the military hospital where he was recuperating from a severe wound during the Normandy campaign, got on a bus and basically went underground without waiting to be officially demobbed. 

In January 1947, Scannell/Bain was arrested, court- martialled but referred to Northfield for treatement. True to form, Scannell is very guarded, but confident, leaves the hospital for days at a time to go drinking once moved from a closed ward : He also opens up to David Reece in the novel. Trouble was that this goes against Vernon Scannelll's own account of his stay at Northfield in his autobiography The Tiger and the Rose in which he claimed to have only engaged with an older chap who was also a serial absconder and avoided the other patients. Also in the novel, Scannell is revealing harrowing  details of his World War 2 experience which he wouldn't actually disclose to the world until 1987. Eventually the authorities decided that he should be discharged as unfit for military service on 30th December 1947. His biographer says hardly anything about Scannell's time at Northfield. TAYLOR

 The  (fictional) patient Freddie Simms, whom David and Scannell befriend, remains trapped in battle induced trauma,with memories of having to struggle from a burning tank.

The Northfield treatments that are depicted in the novel vary a great deal. Some are quite benign, just encouraging men to talk about their experiences either as individuals or in groups. Art therapy is also on offer. Yet there is also 'compulsory mourning' where men are driven to encounter their worst war time loss. Another source advises that this 'treatment' consisted of being placed in a darkened cell for three days, only permitted bread and water, with one hour a day of daylight and another hour of electric light. It was almost designed to bring a patient to breaking point in order to be healed. SHEPHARD

Another method known as  'abreaction' is depicted .Patients are tied to a trolley, have to take barbiturates  intravenously or made to inhale ether. A doctor then shouts at them in order to recreate the most horrendous war memories.This has to be witnessed.  Another theme is leucotome or lobotomy. The notion that part of the brain responsible for emotions can just be cut away thereby 'curing' the trauma. The climax of the novel is reached when Daniel a more benign doctor clashes with a sinister surgeon who is eager to start  leucotome on distressed servicemen. And the character Freddie is selected. (The author gives sources for such a procedure being tried on former soldiers in her introduction to the book including articles from renowned medical journals). 

The author Rayner Heppenstall, who was treated at Northfield, referred to meeting three poets in the Fitzrovia literary scene who had also been patients there in his novel The Lesser Infortune (1953). Heppenstall himself had two volumes of poetry published Blind Men's Flowers Are Green (1940) and Poems 1933-1954 (1946) ,but better known as a novelist. Said poets were depicted as 'Dorian Scott Chrichton 'and " a Welsh and a Canadian poet". The former was Julian Maclaren- Ross, the Welsh poet  Keidrych Rhys, the Canadian Paul Potts. 

Keidrych Rhys was a leading figure in Anglo-Welsh poetry, and was collecting, edited and publishing World War 2 poetry. Serving as a gunner in the 99th London Welsh Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment,Royal Artillery,  he was critical of the War, demanding that guarantees for  radical social change should be made by the authorities. From 25th May 1942-30th May 1942 Rhys went AWOL, but gave himself up, then detained at Woolwich Arsenal. Rather than sent for a court-martial, he was moved to Northfield, by the 27th July 1942 charges were dropped against him, in November 1942, Rhys left Northfield,discharged from the Army but then employed by the Ministry of Information. It appears that Rhys was about to issue a written declaration critical of the War. MUNDYE 2013  Keidrych Rhys wrote about being discharged -Poem on Being Invalided Out of the Army.

It is hard to find references to Northfield in Rhys's published poetry, but his wife, the poet Lynette Roberts drew on Rhys's predicament in Part 5 of  her epic Gods With Stainless Ears  (written in 1941-1943, published in 1951). 

"Mental Homes for Poets :He alone on this
Isotonic plain; against a jingle of Generals
And Cabinet Directors determined
A stand. Declared a Faith. Entered 'Foreign 
Field like a Plantagenet King; his spirit

Gorsefierce; hands like perfect quatrains.
Mourn murmuring ....

Green spindle tears seep out of closed lids..."  ROBERTS/2005  

The 'Canadian poet'  is likely to be Paul Potts, part of the Fitzrovia /Soho Scene from the 1940's until his sad death in 1990. By then Potts had suffered from alcoholism for many years. and lived in squalor. BURNS Most usually remembered for being George Orwell's housemate for a while, some years later he was the last person to visit Orwell before his death. Not much has come to light about Potts's army service, or his time at Northfield. 

 'Dorian Scott Chrichton' / really Julian Maclaren- Ross, was conscripted into the army when World War 2 broke out, and deserted, which triggered a manhunt SANDFORD. The outcome was a spell at Northfield, and then being invalided out of the army. In 1943, Maclaren-Ross became a significant figure in the Fitzrovia /Soho drinking scene. Most known for his short stories such as The Stuff To Give the Troops (1944) , and The Nine Men of Soho (1946), novels such as Bitten By The Tarantula (1946) and Of Love and Hunger (1947), along with his Memoirs of the Forties (1946). There is no record of published poetry by Maclaren-Ross. 

Ultimately evidence of  how poets and writers personally experienced Northfield Hospital appears to be in short supply. It seems that said individuals were not responding enough to treatment in order to become ideal soldiers and therefore discharged. 

                                -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you to all visitors to this blog from around the world. Your interest and support is appreciated. As usual any errors and schoolboy howlers are mine to own and not to be connected to any source material I have cited. 

Still longing for Peace in the world. 

Michael Bully,

Brighton,  28th April 2025. 

Sources 

Walking Wounded by Sheila Llewellyn was published by Sceptre, 2018

Vernon Scannell

SCANNELL, Vernon  Walking Wounded poem text

SCANNELL, Vernon The Tiger and The Rose- an Autobiography Robson Books, 1971/1983  

SCANNELL, Vernon, Soldiering On, Poems of Military Life, Robson Books, 1989

TAYLOR  James Andrew. Walking Wounded-The Life & Poetry of Vernon Scannell. Oxford University Press, 2013 

Northfield 

HARRISON, Tom  Bion, Rickman, Foulkes and the Northfield Experiments;Advancing on a Different Front 

SHEPHARD, Ben, A War With Nerves , Jonathan Cape, 2000 

Other Poets 

BURNS, JIM   PAUL POTTS Penniless Press blog post. 

MUNDYE, Charles, He Stood Alone on this Isotonic Plain, Robert Graves, Keidrych Rhys, Lynette Roberts, and the Situation of the Poet at War , published in Gravesiana 3,(2013).  On line courtesy of the Sheffield Hallam University Archive .  

SANDFORD, Christopher, Julian Maclaren-Ross Chronicles , Chroniclesmagazine  November 2012

Other blogs by Michael Bully

Bleak Chesney Wold   19th century related literature & dark history

a Burnt Ship                 17th century War & literature

Review : 'Poetry of the Second World War' An Anthology

                                     Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Tim Kendall 
                                     Oxford University Press ( hardback) 2024          

                          

                    Tim Kendall is a Professor of English at the University of Exeter. His publications include Modern English War Poetry (2006), Poetry of the First World War (2013) and he is also co-editing a five volume Complete Literary Work of Ivor Gurney for publication. Thought that it was time to review this anthology after hearing Tim Kendall give a talk about World War 2 poetry at the London Archives, Northampton Road,London, on 5th March 2025. 

The above anthology features work by British poets who lived through World War 2 and were writing poetry or wrote poetry about the conflict in the post war-years.The eldest poet included-Frances Cornford- was born in 1886, the youngest -Karen Gershon-1923.The featured poets did not have to be serving in the Forces but the War had to be within their living memory. 

Tim Kendall's vast literary knowledge makes the book introduction a valuable asset to our understanding of World War 2 poetry. Poets are introduced by a page or so of biography and the footnotes interpreting the selected poems are superb :In fact I thought that I was very familiar with Keith Douglas's Vergissmeinnicht. After reading and hearing Tim Kendall's view of this poem, realised that I had missed so much. This ability to find so many different angles to approach these poems makes the anthology helpful for those exploring the subject for the first time and for people already involved in the genre. There is also a bibliography, and a chronology of the War Years. Both are of practical use for students of World War 2 poetry. 

The introduction highlights the issues surrounding new poets in 1939, already somewhat overshadowed by the legacy of the Soldier Poets of World War 1. Existing publishers were not always encouraging, neither were some existing poets. 'Where Are the War Poets?' was asked by sections of the media in 1939-1940.  Cyril Connolly's esteemed literary magazine, Horizon, was  initially not featuring work by new poets or about the War.Was War Poetry even needed as a specific genre, after the World War 1 soldier poets such as Owen, Sassoon, Graves, et al had used poetry as a medium (along with literary memoir) to inform the civilian population of the 'Pity of War'? However, Edmund Blunden supported his former student Keith Douglas, whilst Robert Graves backed Alun Lewis . 

Out of the 1930's poets, Stephen Spender was hoping for poetry to explore social reform. W H Auden fled to the USA, though his poem '1st  September 1939',to the best of my knowledge, is the only World War 2 related poem to have a whole book devoted to its text and background. (1st  September 1939-A Biography of a Poem, by Ian Sansom, 2019).Could also add Stevie Smith and Dylan Thomas's earliest concerns that poetry was not a suitable literary form to tackle the sheer enormity of World War 2.

Professor Kendall's emphasis is on World War 2 Poetry as a genre evolved via the Desert War /North Africa campaign and the Blitz. His view is that the quality of writing  from the Desert War of  June 1940- May 1943, the only British Army land  campaign from June 1940- May 1943,"bears comparison with anything from the Somme"; Keith Douglas, Sorley Maclean, Hamish Henderson, Robert Garioch,and John Jarmain, are cited in this respect. There was conscious effort by ex-pats such as C.S.Fraser and Lawrence Durrell to create a cultural scene in Cairo and Alexandria. ( I would also add the work of the Oasis and the Salamander Trusts ,which later merged into one organisation, in this field). Serving men were encouraged to write poetry and prose. It is not surprising that Keith Douglas has 13 poems featured in the anthology. The North Africa campaign was very much a conflict between armies in fairly desolate areas without mass civilian casualties, apart from the city of Tobruk.  

By contrast, Professor Kendall's counts the Blitz poems related poetry as equally important, also showing that the suffering of civilians due to mass aerial bombing created a new strand of war poetry : "The Soldier no longer possessed a special knowledge denied to ordinary civilians." Impressive poetry by Elizabeth Bowen, Edith Sitwell,Ruth Pitter, Dylan Thomas, Stevie Smith, is acknowledged in this respect, along with Stephen Spender's poem about the bombing of Plymouth'-The Air Raid Across The Bay'. Also the work of E.J. Scovell, living in Oxford during the War, aware that the city had been spared bombing. 

The Italian campaign and the War at Sea are less significant to Tim Kendall's view, though he rates Charles Causely as the most important poet from the Navy and his work does appear in the anthology. He considers that Dunkirk, and the 'race to Berlin' did not yield any noticeable poetry.* The Normandy landings saw the death of Keith Douglas and John Jermain but this wave of fighting is not generally  associated with war poetry in Tim Kendall's perspective: Though as a poet, has written 'For The War Dead of Normandy' and 'At Keith Douglas's Grave' in his collection Strange Land from 2005. (Personally would add that the poem 'Walking Wounded' and 'The Argument of Kings' war memoir, both by Vernon Scannell who served and wounded in Normandy 1944 are some of the best World War 2 writing I have come across.)

Alun Lewis who died in mysterious circumstances during the Burma Campaign,has poems included. Louis Macneice, too weak to serve in uniform has an extract of his classic eve of war poem-'Autumn Journal' featured. T.S Eliot gets one contribution- an extract from 'Little Gidding'. A surprising entry are Noel Coward's lyrics to 'Don't Be Beastly to the Germans'. 

 Some lines from  Cecil Day Lewis's 'Where Are The War Poets' are quoted on the back cover of the anthology, amongst the seven of his poems that are added:

"It is the logic of our times, 
No subject for Immortal verse
That we who lived by honest dreams
Defend the bad against the worse."

The notion of having to 'defend the bad against the worse' suggests that many World War 2 poets were not pro-Establishment as such but realised that the threat of Nazism was more frightening. Indeed,Vernon Scannell was a serial absconder whilst in uniform. Keidrych Rhys went AWOL for personal reasons, but it is a step too far to count them as being ideologically opposed to Britain taking part in the conflict.Pacifist writer Vera Brittain's 'Lament for Cologne' is an exception, (not included in this anthology). Douglas Young, Scottish Nationalist poet, was a conscientious objector and served two terms in prison for his stance, was atypical. Pacifist poetry by Alex Comfort, who had a good natured literary clash or two with George Orwell about the War, was marginalised. 

My initial gripe with this anthology was that some of my favourite poets, Vernon Scannell,Lynette Roberts, Alan Ross, Keidrych Rhys, have no work included. But on the other hand, I have begun to appreciate the work of Stephen Spender, and Alun Lewis after purchasing the anthology, and want to seek out poetry by  Ruth Pitter, Anne Ridler and Hamish Henderson after reading Tim Kendall's views of their work. 

Over time, this anthology will become an essential work about World War 2 Poetry. Highly Recommended.

*Since writing this original piece, have looked against at the Poets of the Second World War-The Oasis Selection published by the Oasis Salamander Trust in 1985. Amongst the poems collected in World War 2 and in post wars years, they included three poems about Dunkirk, written by Leon Atkins, B.G.Bonallack, and Alan Rook. Bonnallack and Rook served at Dunkirk, biographical information on Atkins is not available. There is also a section titled 'Normandy to Berlin', including thirty poems by some nineteen poets. 

Michael Bully, Brighton, 22nd March 2025. 

Jason from The Channel of a Disappointed Man YouTube literature channel  has also pointed out that John Lehmanns's New Writing featured World War 2 poetry & prose during the War itself. Thank you Jason. 

Michael Bully, Brighton 24th March 2025. 

Links

Related posts from this blog :

Sassoon Re-appraised by World War 2 poets 

Scottish World War 2 Poets   (With a focus on the Desert War). 

Two Laments for Cologne  Mary E.Harrison ('My Hands') and Vera Brittain ( 'Lament for Cologne') 

Other Blogs by Michael Bully

Bleak Chesney Wold  'Dark' 19th century history & related literature.

A Burnt Ship 17th century related war & literature 

London in the Second World War  exhibition at the London Archives runs until 30th October 2025. Free entry. 

Spike Milligan 'The Soldiers at Lauro'

                                                     Young Are Our Dead 

                                                    

                                 (Terrence)  Spike Milligan,born in India in 1918, most famous as a comic with The Goon Show, along with Peter Sellers, Harry Seacombe, Michael Bentine. which ran on British radio from 1951-1960,with regular re-unions into the early 1970's. Highly regarded  and relatively popular, the show became famous for its surrealism and zany humour. Generally considered to be a forerunner of Monty Python's Flying Circus (first broadcast in 1969) and 1980's Alternative Comedy. Spike Milligan also had his own comedy series during the 1970's and into the 1980's. 

Spike Milligan was also an actor, author,Jazz musician and poet. He served in the North Africa and Italian campaigns as a gunner in the 56th Heavy Regiment Royal Artillery. Milligan also wrote a series of war memoirs such as 'Adolf Hitler-My Part In His Downfall' (which was also filmed) , 'Rommel Gunner Who- A Confrontation in the Desert'. The books combine an irreverent look at army life from the point of view of the ordinary soldier, with tragic-comic reportage based on his own military experience. Along with cartoons, drawings, photos with humorous captions. Milligan's overall empathy for the soldier of the lower ranks resounded with many of the generation who served during World War 2, and subsequent conflicts during the National Service era. 

Whilst Milligan's instinctive distrust of military authority, emphasis on the suffering and absurd nature of War, his interest in Surrealism and love of Jazz appealed to the more rebellious Post- War youth. There is compassion and humanity in Milligan's work, but also a strong sense that admiration for rank should be earned,not automatically awarded on the basis of privilege. Spike Milligan also campaigned for peace, animal welfare, and for the environment. 

The fourth war memoir, 'Mussolini-His Part in My Downfall', is longer than the others, dwells on the Italian campaign of September 1943-1944. Presented as a diary. (Keeping a diary whilst on campaign was against the rules of the Forces.) 'Musollini-His Part in My Downfall' reads as a progress report :  After military success in North Africa, the Allied armies cross into Italy. Mussolini's regime fell. However the Germans invaded, Mussolini was sprung from captivity, and the Allies faced a slow, and often gruelling, progress north through the Italian peninsula. In this memoir the comedy angle still prevails and even flourishes, but also the boredom and sense of futility as war persists with no clear victory in sight. At Lauro in January 1944, Milligan is physically wounded and also traumatised with PTSD as a result of combat, and undergoes a mental breakdown. Very poignant, seeing how a soldier can lose all their coping mechanism and descend into panic

                ‘The Soldiers at Lauro ‘

            Young are our dead
            Like babies they lie
            The wombs they blest once
            Not healed dry
            And yet-too soon
            Into each space
            A cold earth falls
            On colder face.
            Quite still they lie
            These fresh-cut reeds
            Clutched in earth
            Like winter seeds
            But they will not bloom
            When called by spring
            To burst with leaf
            And blossoming
            They sleep on
            In silent dust
            As crosses rot
            And helmets rust "

Perhaps one of my favourite World War 2 poems. The image of the cross with the helmet placed on it on the soldier's grave, corroding away, is startling. It is not clear when 'The Soldiers at Lauro' was first written or originally published. The poem is included in Milligan's small dream of a scorpion collection of poems from 1972.

Spike Milligan endured a series of re-occurring breakdowns throughout his life. One drawing from small dream of a scorpion is accompanied by the lines "If I die in War/You remember me/If I live in Peace/You don't. Just says so much in so few words.

UPDATE

I have just been looking at 'Poems of the Second World War- the Oasis Selection- published in 1985. There is a short piece included by Spike Milligan titled 'How I wrote my First Poem' , which discloses more background to 'The Boys at Lauro'. This refers to his service as a gunner in January 1944.

A gun position had been dug by the village of Lauro and a battery had dug in. The Germans established where they firing from and their position incurred a direct hit. The camouflage netting caught fire, setting off their ammunition. All but 2 of this group of Gunners were killed in the explosion or burnt to death. Spike Milligan was moved to write' The Boys at Lauro', his first ever poem, as a consequence.

Michael Bully

Brighton

22nd March 2025.

Picture Credit 

'The Fifth Army in Lauro,Italy, 19th January 1944 , courtesy of the Imperial War Museum, used via Non-Commercial licence. Further Information  

Use of Poem 

I have not been able to find who owns the copyright to Spike Milligan's work. No deliberate copyright infringement has been intended. Please me contact below if anyone can assist. 

As ever, thank you to all the people around the world who visit this blog. Any errors or schoolboy howlers that appear in this post are of my own making and not attributable to any source that I have cited. 

Michael Bully 

Brighton

13th March 2025.  

Contact: Michael Bully     World War 2 Poetry@mail.com   ( please ram words together without spaces) 

Other Blogs

Bleak Chesney Wold  19th Century 'dark' history & literature

A Burnt Ship               17th century War & literature 

Lynette Roberts (1909-1995)

                            And the Swansea Blitz of 19th-21st February 1941    

              

                       

            Some years ago I covered Lynette Roberts' life and poetry with special reference to her poem 'Crossed and Uncrossed'. To avoid repetition, it's probably worth checking the earlier post : Lynnete Roberts was born in Argentina in 1909, and her family lived in Britain during World War 1,though returned after the conflict. Around 1923 Roberts and her younger sister were sent to a convent school in Bournemouth. Her connections with the  Anglo-Welsh Modernist current only developed in the later 1930's.

Her work came to mind again after I read Owen Sheers' counter-factual novel 'Resistance' (2007) . Set in 1944, the scenario concerns D Day hopelessly rebounding,along with the Soviet Army facing major setback in the East. Triggering in turn a German invasion of Britain via landings on the beaches of  south east Wales. The novel has faced adverse criticism for extending the 'What If' model too far so as to become unusable. But there are some great scenes set in an isolated valley village, where a small German patrol live alongside the local women. It is fair to point out that this stretch of coastline, with its miles of beaches was considered a possible site for an enemy invasion in 1940. 

Swansea was the most bombed city in Wales. Already bombed on 17th January 1941, the city suffered a blitz lasting three days 19th-21st February 1941. 230 people were killed, nearly 6,500 were made homeless, 570 businesses were destroyed. On 21st February the flames of Swansea could be seen as far away as north Devon. GARDINER The Germans were keen to disrupt supplies coming in from the Atlantic to Britain, which made the port a particular target. At the outset of war, it was decided not to evacuate the children from Swansea CALDER. Roberts noticed in her diary that her village had taken evacuees from London, and could not house children who had lost their homes during the bombing of Swansea. Diaries,Letters, and Recollections. 

When World War 2 broke out, Roberts was newly married  and living in the remote village of Llanyibri, Carmarthenshire, just over 30 miles from Swansea. Her husband Keidrich Rhys,a leading Anglo-Welsh poet, was called up to serve as a gunner in 1940. Isolated with only the occasional foray into the literary world, Roberts' observations of the natural world,being an outsider who still felt a strong affinity to Welsh mythology and history, facing all the challenges of wartime, she began writing a series of poems which were published in 1944 and 1951. Her wartime epic poem 'Gods With Stainless Ears', was written between 1941-1943. Dedicated to Edith Sitwell, it was a five part poem written largely in the present tense in a reportage style. Each part contains an 'argument' introduction, and the overall poem contains explanatory end notes. There is a notable use of quite obscure, even obtuse words:

From Part III of 'Gods With Stainless Ears'

"Water rises appointing silver streams
To encircle the clay. Mounting ships higher,
Disturbing the colder water of shells. Near
Nightjars undisclosed,where green icy stars
Ripple above the corn this late seaharvest....

Wounded, lie heavily in the dishwater tributary,
Night falling catches the flares and bangs 
On gorselit rock. Yellow birds shot from
Iridium creeks,-Let the whaleback of the sea
Fall back into a wrist of ripples, slit,

Snip up the moon sniggering on its back,
Defledged by this evening's raid;jigging up
Like a tapemachine the cold figures February
19th,20th,21st. A memorial of Swansea's tragic loss

For on them sail the hulls of ninety wild birds."

Now and then Roberts included a line which suddenly cuts home. Such as in the 'Argument' introduction to Part I

"Machine-gun is suggested by the tapping of a woodpecker", 

Showing how even the most natural of sounds in the countryside now has a war-association,especially as her husband was a gunner. 

Or further into Part I

"Soldier lonely whistling in full corridor train" 

Conjures a photograph or picture, perhaps could spur the writing of a short story. 

In a lesser known work 'Village Dialect: Seven Stories' (1944), Lynette Roberts wrote a short piece titled  'Swansea Raid' .

"From our high village overlooking the Towy we can see straight down the South Wales Coast. Every searchlight goes up. A glade of magnesium waning to a distant hill which we know to be Swansea. 
     Swansea's sure to be bad. Look at those flares like a swarm of orange bees.
    They fade and others return. A collyrium sky, chemically washed Cu.DH2. A blasting flash impels Swansea to riot! Higher, absurdly high, the sulphuric clouds roll with their stench or ore, we breath naphthalene air, the pillars of smoke writhe, and the astrigent sky lies pale at her sides." Diaries, Letters and Recollecions

Roberts's marriage failed a few years after the War, her two children remained with her. Sadly by the end of the 1950's Roberts' mental health deteriorated and her writing ceased. Her strange brew of Modernism and New Apocalytpic poetry, with intentional archaic language and evoking of mythology, fell out of fashion. Roberts' died in 1995, largely forgotten,sometimes a footnote via her connections to famous names such as Robert Graves, Alun Lewis, Edith Sitwell, Vernon Watkins, T.S Elliot.

However, in the 21st century her work has at last been republished,and studied, mainly for its unique vision of  life during wartime, 'Lynette Roberts Collected Poems' edited by Patrick McGuiness was published in 2005, followed by ' Lynnette Roberts Diaries, Letters and Recollections' also edited by Patrick McGuiness. In 2013, Owen Sheers included a 30 minute programme about Roberts' connection to  Llanyibri as part of his 'A Poet's Guide to Britain' series. 

 The current debate about 'Welshness'  has not really looked at Roberts' poetry.  Our Culture/BBC   Certainly not would be a straightforward process. In fact at one stage the villagers of Llanyibri considered Roberts to be a possible spy, a humiliating experience she depicted well in the poem 'Raw Salt on the Eye'. Collected Poems However, this did not diminish her affinity to her adopted country and Roberts returned to Wales and died in Carmarthenshire. Moreover, Lynette Roberts is credited with assisting Robert Graves in the writing of 'The White Goddess', which is more of an enchanting work of mythology rather than anthropology or history.Diaries,Letters and Recollections

A further post about Lynette Roberts will hopefully appear on this blog later in the year. 

Picture Credit 

Photo in the public domain courtesy of the Imperial War Museum reference IWM (HU 36143). Titled 'Mothers and children in a working class area of Swansea have tea and sandwiches from a mobile canteen after a night's bombing'. 

Online 

Cross and Uncrossed   Previous post about Lynette Roberts from this blog, 2017 

Our Culture Isn't Fantasy  BBC webpage about Wales and contemporary 'mysticism'

Swansea at War                BBC feature

Books 

'Lynnette Roberts Collected Poems' edited by Patrick MCGUINNESS , Carcanet, 2005

'Lynnette Roberts Diaries, Letters and Recollections'  edited by Patrick MCGUINNESS , Carcanet, 2008

'The People's War Britain 1939-1945', Angus CALDER, Jonathan Cape 1969/Pimlico 1989 

'Wartime Britain in 1939-1945', Juliet GARDNER, Headline Books, 2004

'Reading the Ruins, Modernism, Bombsites, and British Culture' Leo Mellor, Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Thank you to all the visitors to this blog from around the world. 

Other blogs :

Bleak Chesney Wold   19th century history & literature blog

A Burnt Ship                17th century history warfare & literature blog 

Contact: Michael Bully     World War 2 Poetry@mail.com   ( please ram words together without spaces) 

Please note that any errors or schoolboy howlers in the above piece are the responsibility of this writer, and not to be attributed to the sources that have been cited.

Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński (1921-1944)

                                                 Poet of the Warsaw Uprising 1944

                                        

The poetry of World War 2 varies in significance from country to country. Polish independence after World War 1 encouraged a new wave of Polish literature.CULTURE.PL (2)  A group of poets emerged in time to be caught up in the 1939 occupation of Poland by the Wehrmacht in the west and the Soviet Union in the east, coming under total German control once Operation Barbarossa was launched on 30th June 1941. 

Amongst these poets was  Wladyslaw Szlengel, killed during the 1943  Jewish uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. The mass deportations of  Warsaw Jews to their death at Treblinka had started the year before. Those who remained in the Ghetto rebelled to make a desperate last stand. 

In the Summer of 1944 the Western Allies had landed in France, and were marching on Paris.  The Soviet Armies were driving into Eastern Europe. Both Paris and Warsaw rose in rebellion in August 1944. However, the Soviets hesitated to realise the potential created by the Polish rebel Home Army turning on the German oppressors,even though a joint Soviet- Polish operation to drive the Wehrmacht out of Warsaw would greatly assist the progress westwards. The Soviets also hampered British and US attempts to fly supplies to the parts of Warsaw held by the insurgents. Certainly there is a strong case to suggest that Stalin was content to see the Polish Home Army greatly weakened in order to establish Soviet control over a post-war Poland.DAVIES, McKEEN, MILTON

The 1944 Warsaw Uprising saw Tadeusz Gajey, Waclau Bojarski, Andrzaj Trzebiaski, all three poets born in 1922,and Leon Stroinski born 1921,take up arms, and lose their lives. CULTURAL.PL(2)  Jerzy Ficowski and Anna Swirszcyriska,usually known as Anna Swir, took part, and wrote poetry about their experiences. GEORGE.  Czeslaw Milosz, originally from Lithuania though later to become a leading Polish language poet, lived in Warsaw from 1940 onwards. Milosz assisted the Underground though did  not take part in the 1944 Uprising. Zbignieuw Herbert, who was to become another major Polish poet, also helped the Warsaw rebels, but not as a combatant, in 1944. It is fair to say that literary opposition to the Occupation played their part in building resistance within the City with poets and artists placing their lives at risk. 

 Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński is denoted by Desmond Graham as 'Poland's main 'war poet'' in his anthology 'Poetry of the Second World War'.GRAHAM  Born in Warsaw in 1921, and entered the literary Left milieu at quite an early age. During the occupation -with colleges and university, Baczyński studied at underground educational establishments and edited a  clandestine left wing publication. He assisted the literary bureau of the Polish Home Army and in 1943 joined their ranks as a soldier. In July of that year he became Deputy Commander of 3rd platoon of the of the 3rd Company of the 'Parasol' battalion. CULTURAL.PL (1) 

Editions of poems from the years 1940-1944:

• Zamkniętym echem (Closed Echo), Warsaw 1940 – 7 copies
• Dwie miłości (Two Loves), Warsaw 1940 – 7 copies
• Modlitwa (Prayer), Warsaw 1942 – 3 copies
• Wiersze wybrane (Chosen Poems), Warsaw 1942 (pseudonym: Jan Bugaj)
• Arkusz poetycki Nr.1 (Poetical Sheet No. 1), Warsaw 1944 (pseudonym: Jan Bugaj)
• Śpiew z pożogi (Singing from the Conflagration), Warsaw 1944 (pseudonym: 2nd Lt Piotr Smugosz)

CULTURAL.PL (1) 

On 3rd June 1942  Baczyński married a student called Barbara Drabcynska, who inspired him to write love poetry. He also studied art, and developed some skill as an illustrator.  On 1st August 1944, when the Warsaw Uprising broke out, he gave a collection of his drawings and poetry to a friend. On 4th August 1944 Baczyński, now armed and taking part in the Uprising, was killed by a German sniper at the Theatre Square in Warsaw. His wife Barbara had also taken part in the fighting, and was killed three weeks later. They were later buried together at  Powazki military cemetery in Warsaw.POLISH POETS UNITES 

One poem by Baczyński  that has recently emerged on the All Poetry website-translated into English is 'Elegy for a Polish Boy' . 

Elegy For A Polish Boy

They've taken you, my son, from your dreams and like a butterfly
they've embroidered you, my son. Your sad eyes bleed ore.
They painted landscapes, yellow-stitched, in horror and gore,
they adorned a hanged man like a tree, the sea's waves to ply.

They taught you, my son, your land and its ways by heart
and by its footpaths you sob iron shards for tears.
They tuned you in darkness, fed you in loaves of terror.
You tread, groping through to dark, the road of fear.

And you ascended at night, my golden son, with a black gun
you perceived in the passing of a minute-bristling evil's thirst.
Before you fell, you hailed the earth with your hand,
did it soften your fall, my sweet child, did the heart burst?

English language translations of Baczyński's poetry have appeared in a few collections and are referenced in Norman Davies's ' 'Rising' 44- The Battle for Warsaw'. In 2004 'White Magic and Other Poems ' by 

 Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, translated by Bill Johnson, appeared. Now extremely hard to get hold of. 

A Melody

Who'll give me back my musings
and the shadow that left after you?
Ah, these days like animals' murmur,
like plants are they - ever younger.

And before long - such little ones,
on a nutshell standing,
we'll sail against the seasons
as if to spite water rings.

The red of blood will be dreamt childishly
as puffed-out cheeks of a cherry.

The metal of storms will be discovered again
through a foamy blow-ball's head.

While the thunder of tears like an avalanche of stones
into little green beetles will change,
thus bending down to the water by turns
we'll incautiously sail to oblivion;
left behind by us on earth
only our shadows shall cry.

Hopefully a new English language edition of the work of Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński will emerge soon. 

All Poetry  Some Baczyński Poems translated into English 

Culture.PL biography  (1)  Baczyński biog.

Culture.PL page about Warsaw Uprising looking at the literary connection (2) 

Polish Cultural Institute (New York) POLISH POETS UNITE feature on Baczyński (English language) 

Krystof Kamil Baczynski  -Poet Soldier of the Home Army, Warsaw ( Youtube video biography, Polish with English subtitles,accessed on 9th January 2025) 

Other related posts from this blog.

Leon Stroinski (Poet of the Warsaw Uprising)  from 2019 

Wladyslaw Szlengel (Poet of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising) 

BOOKS

'Rising'44 -The Battle for Warsaw' , Norman DAVIES, Pan Books, 2004

'Contemporary East European Poetry-An Anthology' ,Edited by Emery GEORGE, Oxford University Press, 1983

'Poetry of the Second World War -An International Anthology' Desmond GRAHAM, Pimlico, 1999.

'Stalin's War', Sean McKEEKIN, Allen Lane, 2021 

'The Stalin Affair- The Impossible Alliance That Won The War' , Giles MILTON, John Murrary, 2024

Pictures

Image of  Baczyński and the memorial plaque marking the scene of his death, in public domain courtesy of 'Wikipedia'. 

Other blogs and contact 

Other blogs :

Bleak Chesney Wold   19th century history & literature blog

A Burnt Ship                17th century history warfare & literature blog 

Contact: Michael Bully     World War 2 Poetry@mail.com   ( please ram words together without spaces) 

Please note that any errors or schoolboy howlers in the above piece are the responsibility of this writer, and not to be attributed to the sources that have been cited. 

Michael Bully

Brighton,  England, 17th January 2025. 

Marina Tsvetaeva

              Extract From Poems to Czechoslovakia 

              

                                                        GERMANY

O, rosiest virgin
among the green hills—
Germany!
Germany!
Germany!
Shame!

The astral soul
pocketed half the cards!
Those fairy tales—from old times, dimmed,
the day—the tanks arrived.

Before the Czech peasant woman—
you don’t lower your eyes,
as you roll on your tanks
through her rye, her hopes?

Before the huge grief
of this small country,
what is it you feel, German,
Germany’s sons??

O mania! O mummy
of greatness!
You’ll burn,
Germany!
Madness,
madness
you make!

With the embrace of a constrictor
the athlete will end you!
To your health, Moravia!
Slovakia, slovak!

In the crystal underground,
having retreated—prepare the blow:
Bohemia!
Bohemia!
Bohemia!
Hello!

(April 9-10, 1939)

 I first came across the work of Marina Tsvetavena/Tsevtajeva ( 1892- 1941) from reading 'Poetry of the Second World War edited by Desmond Graham'. And her life is an absolutely harrowing read. Born in Moscow into quite a cultured family- her father was a professor and founder of the Museum of Fine Art, opened by Tsar Nicholas II in 1912. Her mother, a Polish-German pianist who died from tuberculosis when Marina was fourteen. Marina was educated at different international schools, including The Sorbonne and had her first collection of poems 'Evening Album' published when she was eighteen. In 1912 Marina married Sergie/Sergej Efron,a devotee of poetry, though not clear if he was a published a poet himself. 

And the turbulence of the 20th century descended. I can't find a record of Efron's war service in World War One but after the 1917 Revolution, Efron was fighting in the White Army during the Russian Civil War. The couple were separated and Marina began a short affair with the poet Odip Mandelstan, and then later had a relationship with Sofia Parnock, a fellow poet. Marina's sympathies were with the Whites and she wrote a poem titled  'The Demense of Swans',in support of the anti-revolutionary cause, not published until 1957.

Famine struck Moscow  in 1919 where the family were living, and Marina placed her two daughters in a state run children's home. Her younger daughter, Irina died there. Sergei , Marina and their surviving daughter Alja (Ariadna) moved to Berlin in 1922, then Prague, and finally to Paris in 1925. Sergei Efron began working as a Soviet spy, which of course meant that they were shunned by the White Russian/ Tsarist emmigrés. It is not completely clear why Sergei changed sides.Marina corresponded with famous poets and had some work published in exile, trying to write plays and literary criticism. 

In 1938 and 1939 Marina wrote a cycle of poems about the post Munich Treaty dismantling of the land of  Czechoslovakia ,titled 'Poems To Czechoslovakia'.  The German speaking 'Sudetenland' had already been ceded to The Third Reich in 1938 via international agreement.  The Third Reich had seized the largely Czech speaking provinces of Bohemia and Moravia on  15th March 1939 and turned them into a Protecterate. Slovakia became independent and allied to the Germans.  The poems in this cycle connect to dates during the demise of the country. As in the example cited above, they are concise, direct, and sharp, and no word is wasted. 

Also in June 1939 Marina,Sergei  Erfon and their son Georgij, known as Mur , relocated to the Soviet Union.Sources appear to conflict, I have read that Sergei Erfon was facing attempted murder charges in France, thought it is equally plausible that the Soviet authorities-still controlling him- ordered Sergei back. Alja had already returned but was soon banished to Siberia, then later to a labour camp there.  In October 1939 Sergei Efron was arrested for spying and attempting to undermine the Soviet Military. In June 1941 he was condemned to death, and executed at Lubjanka Prison in October 1941. However there are claims that Sergei Erfon  was amongst some 157 intellectuals who were executed on 11th September 1941 as part of the Soviet State's Medvedev Forest massacre as the Germans were approaching the region. 

In retrospect it seemed unlikely that Sergei Erfon would have ever been accepted by the Stalinist regime and his usefulness to them had simply expired. It is possible that the Secret Service cajoled Sergei and Alja to incriminate each other. KUDROVA, Another source suggests that Alja's boyfriend at the time turned out to be a police agent and informed on her and Sergei. CARCANET

Marina and Mur left Moscow in July 1941, moving to Yelabuga,Tatarstan. They were isolated from any contemporary literary life, and desperately short of money.  Marina hanged herself on 31st August 1941. 

Mur returned to Moscow, was called up for military service in 1943, and killed in action fighting for the Soviet regime in the Summer of 1944, most likely in what is now Belaraus. 

In the wake of Stalin's death, the banning order against Alja was lifted in 1955 and she was released.Sergei Erfon was posthumously rehabilitated. Alja survived until 1975 and dedicated her life to reviving her mother's work.  In 1965 an anthology of Marina's work was published in the Soviet Union.Leading post-war Soviet poet Yvengy Yevtushenko wrote a poem about her death and cited Marina as an influence.  In 1973, Shostakovich set six of Marina's poems to music, whilst on holiday in Estonia, titled 'Six Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva Opus 143A'. They were performed by the English Touring Opera in January 2024.

Marina Tsvetaeva has now been recognised as a leading 20th century Russian language poet, along with Boris Pasternak, Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam and Joseph Brodsky. There is a memorial Museum dedicated to her work 

Anna Akhmatova wrote a poem in 1940 'Late Answer'  dedicated to Marina Tsvetaeva, which seems a fitting tribute: 

" I returned home today,
look on in wonder,my native field,
at what happened to me after this.
The deep has swallowed up my loved ones,
the father's house is pillaged,
You and I today, Marina,
are walking through the midnight capital,
and millions like us are following behind us,
There is no more silent procession,
and round about the funeral bells ring, 
and wild Moscow wails as the the blizzard covers our tracks." 

(from 'Selected Poems' by Anna Akhmatova, translated by Richard McKane, Bloodaxe Books, 1969)

Picture 

Photo courtesy of 'Wikipedia'. Hitler's visit to Prague Castle 15th/16th March 1939 

Sources 

CARCANET Marina Tsvetaeva biog webpage with list of  her poetry collections translated into English. 

Poetry Foundation biography  Web page on Marina Tsvetaeva

Full Text   'Poems to Czechoslovakia'  translated by Margaret Little.

Death of a Poet The Last Days of Marina Tsvetaeva' Irma KUDROVA ( book publicity page) 

South Magazine   Issue 31, April 2005 : Article 'Marina Tsvetaeva - Poet of Extreme' by Belinda Cooke

Coppice -Gate Webpage about  Shostakvoich's interpretation of Marina Tsvetaeva's poems 

The Memorial House Museum dedicated to Marina Tsvetaeva in Bolshevo, Russia

Related Post 

Anna Akhmatova  Post from this blog about Anna Akhmatova from 2018 

Other blogs :

Bleak Chesney Wold   19th century history & literature blog

A Burnt Ship                17th century history warfare & literature blog 

Contact: Michael Bully     World War 2 Poetry@mail.com   ( please ram words together without spaces) 

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