How Easy it is to Make a Ghost
There has been a request to share some thoughts about Keith Douglas, This blog has probably neglected Douglas simply because he is one of the few figures from his generation whose talents as a poet, war illustrator and prose writer have been recognised. Douglas served in North Africa and Palestine from August 1941, was wounded in action in January 1943, Whilst recuperating, Douglas returned to writing poetry ; he was already an accomplished and published poet from his days at Oxford University. Douglas continued his service in Egypt and Tunisia, and his regiment, the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, came back to England at the end of the year. Douglas was killed in action in Normandy on the 9th June 1944, leaving behind an extensive body of high quality work.
Douglas entered Merton College via a scholarship to read English in 1938. He was fortunate enough to have World War 1 poet Edmund Blunden as a tutor. Douglas submitted poetry for publication whilst a student, also did some literary editing including a spell as editor of the Oxford student publication The Cherwell.
Douglas's work often drew on his own premonition that he would not survive the conflict. As well as obvious clues such as the title of his poem simplify me when I am dead,he left behind a war memoir titled Alamein to Zem Zem, largely about his experience serving as a tank captain during the North Africa campaign. By comparison, the World War 1 memoirs written by the poets who served such as Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, Edmund Blunden, Richard Aldington, et al were written years after they had left the Forces. Douglas did not live long enough to see his memoir published in 1946, the original included 16 poems as an appendix.
In 1951 The Collected Poems of Keith Douglas was appeared, edited by two fellow poets John Waller and G.S.Fraser : They acknowledged that Douglas's work had been published in such collections as Eight Oxford Poets, The Voice of Poetry, 1930-1939, More Poems from the Forces, and noticeable magazines as Poetry London and The Times Literary Supplement. Douglas had submitted poems to T.S.Elliott, Blunden also sent in poems on his behalf but Elliott did not go on to publish him.GRAHAM
Keith Douglas's work received little attention in the 1950's.There is the famous account of how Douglas's mother donated six copies of Douglas's Collected Poems to her local bookshop. In 1961 she visited said shop and found that they were all there on the shelves, unsold. SHEERS
A breakthrough occurred when Ted Hughes agreed to write an introduction to Keith Douglas Complete Poems in 1963. Hughes considered Douglas to be the 'greatest poet of World War 2', Sylvia Plath also rated his work highly. Both Plath and Hughes took to the poem The Sea Bird. BATE Interesting choice as they recognised Douglas's talents lay beyond the War Poetry genre.
Alamein to Zem Zem was re-published in 1966 and Douglas's work was in featured in World War 2 poetry anthologies. Desmond Graham's landmark Keith Douglas 1920-1944 A Biography was published in 1974
In the 21st Century Keith Douglas's poetry began to be held in higher esteem. A new advocate for his work emerged with the poet, playwright,and novelist Owen Sheers (born 1974) . BBC Four commemorated Remembrance Day with the screening of a one hour documentary Battlefield Poet Keith Douglas presented by Owen Sheers in 2010. In 2018 ,Owen Sheers's play about Douglas, Unicorns, Almost, based largely on Alamein to Zem Zem ,opened at the Hay Book Festival, and the text was published by Faber & Faber. In 2014, terminally ill media presenter and author Clive James read Keith Douglas's poem Canoe on television and cried . Professor Tim Kendall in his introduction to Poetry of the Second World War, (2024) stated that Douglas was his favourite 'soldier-poet' of the conflict. KENDALL
HOW TO KILL (extract)
"Death, like a familiar,hears
of a man of flesh. This sorcery
I do. Being damned, I am amused
to see the centre of love diffused
and the waves of love travel into vacancy,
How easy it is to make a ghost.
Douglas's poem Vergissmeinicht shows pity to a dead German solider who shortly before had tried to destroy the tank he was in.
VERGISSMEINICHT ('Forget me not '-extract)
the dishonoured picture of his girl
who has put: Steffi.Vergissmeinicht
in a copybook gothic script.......
the dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave ."
(Homs,Tripolitania,1943)
The contrast between the dead German lying on the sand and the photo of his girlfriend is tragic. Showing how War has crushed their affair. One observation made about 'Desert War' poetry is that soldiers on both sides were fighting in quite strange, perhaps alien, landscapes. One in which civilian casualties were far less compared with many other theatres of war. Perhaps it was easy to feel an affinity with a foe in these circumstances,
The refusal to hate the enemy was noticeable when Douglas was still a student at Oxford. Whilst at the cinema Douglas was furious when an audience cheered as a newsreel showed a messerschmitt being shot down in flames, and shouted 'You Shits' over and over again until he was ejected from the building. GRAHAM.
The poem Aristocrats displayed a certain reverence towards Douglas felt towards to the soldier under his command.
ARISTOCRATS (extract)
it took his leg away, he died in the ambulance.
I saw him crawling on the sand; he said
It's most unfair, they've shot my foot off
obsolescent breed of heroes, and not weep?
Unicorns, almost,
in which their stupidity and chivalry
are celebrated. Each, fool and hero, will be an
immortal. "
( Enfidaville, Tunisia,1943)
The first lines- verse two of the poem- reminds one of Siegfried Sassoon's ironic poem They which satirised how soldiers losing limbs was being overlooked as the true cost of war. Yet the following lines quoted above -verse three of the poem- suggests the opposite. Keith Douglas was finding meaning and purpose in fighting.
One poem Cairo Jag from 1943 suggests visits to prostitutes
CAIRO JAG (extract)
a pasty Syrian with a few words of English
or the Turk who says she is a princess-she dances
apparently by levitation? Or Marcelle, Parisienne
always preoccupied with her dull dead lover...."
A further blogpost looking at Alamein to Zem Zem, will be published in the near future.
Sources
Books
Poems taken from Keith Douglas-The Complete Poems,edited by John WALLER/ G.S.FRASER ,Editions Poetry Limited, 1951
Other works
Ted Hughes- The Unauthorised Life Jonathan BATE, William Collins, 2015
Keith Douglas 1920-1944 A biography , Desmond GRAHAM, Oxford University Press 1974
Keith Douglas-The Complete Poems, Introduction by Ted HUGHES, Oxford Poets, 1978 /1998 edition.
Poetry of the Second World War -edited with notes by Tim KENDALL Oxford University Press, Oxford University Press, 2024
Not Without Glory-Poets of the Second World War Vernon SCANNELL, Woburn Press, 1976
Unicorns, Almost ( Text of play with an introduction) Owen SHEERS, The Story of Books, 2018
Youtube
Keith Douglas Battlefield Poet presented by Owen Sheers, 2010, last accessed on 28 September 2025
Other Blogs by Michael Bully
A Burnt Ship 17th century War & Literature,currently being revived.
Bleak Chesney Wold 19th century 'dark' history
Picture Credit : Grave of war poet Keith Douglas at Tilly-sur-Seulles CWGC War Cemetery (14 km south of Bayeux). Plot 1, row E, grave number 2 Courtesy of , owner of the image, available via Creative Commons.
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Michael Bully
West Sussex
29th September 2025
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