Poetry of the Land Girls

                   The Women's Land Army

                  There had been a small Women's Land  Army established in Britain in 1917 and disbanded in 1919. On 1st June 1939 this organisation was revived. At the time, there were 546,000 men and 55,000 women working in agriculture. There was also a pool of 110,000 casual workers, both men and women. By  March 1940 as many as 45,000- 50,000 men who has been working on the land, joined the Army or other occupations. CALDER. Another estimate puts the March 1940 deficit of land workers at 102,00 regular and 30,000 seasonal workers MANT

The threat of food shortages was apparent with merchant ships being easy prey for enemy battle ships, submarines, and aeroplanes. British agriculture simply had to produce more. From June 1939 to the late Summer of 1941, there were around 20,000 volunteers in the Women's Land Army IWM and their numbers were increasing. The National Service Act of December 1941 introduced the conscription of women aged between 20 -30, some who worked on the land It is possible that some 200,000 women were serving with the Women's Land Army at some point from June 1939- 1950, ANTROBUS . The National Archives website claims that 80,000 women were 'Land Girls' at a peak time in 1943. NATIONAL ARCHIVES. 

The women assisted with crop production, looking after livestock, dairy farming, cutting down trees for timber and making paper. Also in the elimination of rats and mice. Their pay increased during the War, and a Benevolent Fund was established for those who were injured due to accidents. WATTON. Though the organisation was called an army, those recruited wore uniforms, they were not subject to military discipline. 

There were male Conscience Objectors who were ordered to work in agriculture and forestry. And from 1943, there were Prisoners of War also thus engaged.  Casual paid workers and volunteers also assisted at peak times. 

Poetry written by the Women's Land Army members appeared in the The Land Girl, Country Life, and Outposts magazines.Already by 1940 a pamphlet titled Poems of the Women's Land Army was published with an introduction by Vita Sackville-West, who devoted a whole book to a study of the Women's Land Army published in 1944. Yet somehow their poetry has been marginalised. There doesn't seem to have been any Women's Land Army members who were already known poets , or who were  to become famous for their published poetry during the post  War years. A large section of World War 2 women's poetry tended to deal with bombing or bereavement, so examining poetry written by women working on the land hopefully broadens the study of this genre. 

Early Harvest

"The corn is carted
The full wains swayed and down the rutted road
There came at evening the last heavy load.
The wagoner, light hearted,
called it a day,
The corn was carted

The corn is carted

A sickle moon upon the stubble gleamed

Up to the flying clouds a searchlight streamed

A wailing syren (sic) started

For not too soon

The corn was carted.

The corn is carted,

The bomber came, tired workers at the farm.

Not for the first time heard the shrill alarm

Now, not a man downheartened, 

Saw creeping flame.

The corn was carted.

The corn is carted,

We said good-bye when it was springing green

But death has ploughed a furrow in between

Us, since the day we parted,

And where you lie

The corn is carted.

The corn is carted

The feeble weed which broke the heavy cloud

At length was ripened by the hard of God

Young, strong and eager-hearted

For England's need.

The corn was carted."

Poet not known,listed as 'Anon East Sussex'

Source :  Vita Sackville-West 'Poems of the Women's Land Army' 

This poem has been selected to show how land working is portrayed as monotonous, no impression of being part of a jolly band women working together or being part of some rural idyll. And being published in 1940, not uplifting or defiant. Quite interesting how the poem gradually moves towards the themes of  separation and death . 

By contrast, another poet portrays a quite a joyful year of countryside working as part of the Women's Land Army. 

One Diamond

"Gentle breezes
Lambs at play 
Blossom time and
New mowe hay
Droning bees and
Drowsy heat
Azure skies
Nodding wheat 
Chilly dawns
Blood red leaves
Sunset glories-
Blackberries:
Silent snow and
Frozen ponds
Roaring fires-

Friendships bonds
Thus is found in
One short year 
A Landgirl's real 
Arendia "

-K.H.Lye (Middlesex) WLA No 55498 

Source: Women's Land Army website

This poem is a list of impressions, most likely inspired by  Imagist poetry. Quite precise use of language showing a series of pictures.  Have not managed to trace any information about the poet herself. The poem was published in  The Land Girl magazine April 1944. The reference to 'Arendia' in the last line is a mystery. 

Picture Credit : 

Milking Practise With Artificial Udders  By Evelyn Dunbar, In the public domain, courtesy of the Imperial War Museum/ Wikipedia (Britain)  http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/8162

Poetry Credit:

'Early Harvest' reproduced courtesy of  Creative Commons  licence

'One Diamond' reproduced courtesy of Cherish Watton, Womens Land Army website /TEXT

Books

The Women's Land Army , Bob POWELL/ Nigel WESTACOTT, The History Press, 1997

'The People's War', Angus CALDER

'All Muck, No Medals-Landgirls by Landgirls', Joan MANT, The Book Guild Ltd, 1994

Websites/Web articles

Imperial War Museum (IWM) What was the Women's Land Army during World War 2 webpage

The National Archives   National archives guide to researching Women's Land Army 

'Researching-the-history-of-the-WLA'  ( originally from Local History magazine) Stuart ANTROBUS

Poems of the Land Army An anthology of Verse by members of the Women's Land Army, with a forward by Vita SACKVILLE-WEST , published by Land Girl magazine, 1940 

Women's Land Army  excellent website, run by Cherish WATTON 

Land Girls (The History of the Women's Land Army) , On line exhibition organised by the  Museum of Rural Life,

Youtube 

A Canterbury Tale   1944 film featuring scenes of Land Girls encountering American GIs.

Ploughing the Fields With Poetry  A series of short Youtube videos , depicting lives of the Women's Land Army in poetry, organised by Norfolk Museum Service .

                                   Land Girls and Lumber Jill Memorial, sculpture by Denise Dutton  www.iwm.org.uk/corporate/privacy-copyright]© Colin Sweett (WMR-74909), Courtesy of Imperial War Museum, shared via non-commercial licence   More details

World War 2 Poetry blog supports the Second World War Experience Centre  Please consider looking at their website and the SWWEC Youtube Channel 

World War 2 Poetry blog welcomes the new War Poetry Review website run by the War Poets Association 

Thank you to all visitors to this blog from around world. Your interest is much appreciated. 
A blogpost about Keith Douglas has been requested. Hopefully will appear in the next month or so. 

Michael Bully 
Worthing 
West Sussex 
4th August 2025 

As ever, any errors or schoolboy howlers in the above post are my responsibility and not be attributed to any source that I have cited or listed. 

Social Media 

Now using one Bluesky account: Do join me. 

Michael Bully @bleakchesneywold.bsky.social  

Instagram  

Mr Bleak (@MrBleak5 )

Other blogs by Michael Bully

Bleak Chesney Wold   19th century related literature & dark history

a Burnt Ship                 17th century War & literature

' When they Cut The Ready Wheat '

                        Poetry by  Herbert Corby  and Mary Désiréé  Anderson 

                                 Defence of Albion (1942) Paul Nash , collection of the Imperial War Museum, London.

It's always a pleasure to find lesser known poetry from World War 2. Selecting two recent finds, both dealing with an almost Pagan view of the crops that are being cut relating to the sudden end to human life in wartime. Such death is not viewed as a martyrdom or a heroic fate, simply part of the natural order.  And both writers survived World War 2 .

'Missing'    Herbert Corby 

They told me, when they cut the ready wheat
the hares are suddenly homeless and afraid,
and aimless run the stubble with scare feet
finding no homes in sunlight or shade,

..It's morning, and the Hampdens have returned,
the crews are homes, have stretched and laughed and gone;
when the planes came  and bright neon burned
the sun has ridden the sky and made the dawn,

He walks distraught, circling the landing grounds
waiting the last one in that won't come back,
and like those hares, he wanders round and round,
lost and desolate on the close-cropped ground. 

Herbert Corby/ Herbert W Corby, (born 1911)  had two poems published in magazines in 1937, and others in an anthology titled Best Poems of 1942. In 1945 his collection Hampdens Going Over, featuring some 53 poems about his service in the RAF as an armourer, then an instructor .The hampdens were the twin engine medium bombers used a great deal by the RAF. Another collection of Corby's poems, Time in a Blue Prison, appeared in 1947. Seems that he joined the Foreign Office after war service. Not sure of his date of death but his last collection of poetry was published in 1971. 'Missing' is most likely based on Corby's own experiences. Although the poem is written in the third person, it is most likely that Corby himself was confronted with the loss of pilots that he had trained during his RAF service. A similar poem by Corby is 'Lost', which ends with the lines

"Their lives are ended, but dreams are not yet lost
if you remember in your laugh and song
these boys who do not sing and laughed not long." 

Both 'Missing' and 'Lost' have been lifted from The Terrible Rain The War Poets 1939-1945 An Anthology -selected, arranged, and introduced by Brian Gardner (Methuen,1966)

'Harvest'  -Mary Désiréé Anderson

"In open country the September fields
Now face the death of harvest, and their power
Through ruthless loss redouble their ability,
But here, the blackened dust of London shields,
with artificial pomp of bedded flowers,
The helpless shame of its outworn sterility,

There death is rich in promised life, but here, 
When our bright masqueraders freeze and sicken,
We have no power to give them fresh fertility,
Thus, through the smiling scorn of this dread year,
We stand inert and see our comrades stricken
Our hands unarmed, ashamed of out futility,

We watch afar and mark the hideous pace
At which the Reaper moves, like corn our pride
Bows its plumed head to dark  humility,
Nor have we vision to discern some place
Where, from the furrowed grave of hopes that died,
Point the bright blades of immortality. "

Mary Désiréé Anderson (1902- 1973) , sometimes published as Mary D Anderson, was better known as a specialist in Medieval carving and Christian iconography. Was married to Sir Trenchard Cox, who knew her as Maisie.Was the author of several books on Medieval subjects  most notably History and Imagery in British Churches which was re-published in 1995. Lived in London throughout the War, and her book British Women At War  was published in 1941.  'Harvest' first appeared in what appears to be the only collection of her poetry -Bow Bells Are Silent- from 1943. 

Anderson's poem is contrasts how frail all life is, helpless at the 'hideous pace' of wartime death. It is highly possible that the poem dates from 1940, the "dread year"which saw the rapid collapse of many European countries that Spring and Summer. And the understandable fear of German invasion. Probably a little too harrowing to be published at the time. Anne Powell's anthology Shadows of War- British Women's Poetry of the Second World War' contains three poems written by Mary Désiréé Anderson about 1940, taking in Dunkirk, the Blitz and war time classical music concerts at the National Gallery. All were to emerge later in Bow Bells Are Silent.

'Harvest' is taken from Chaos of the Night-Women's Poetry & Verse of the Second World War Selected by Catherine Reilly. (Virago Press, 1984). 

ENDS

As ever, appreciate all the visitors to this Blog from all around the world. 

Michael Bully

Brighton 

11th July 2025 

Social Media 

Now using one Bluesky account: Do join me. 

Michael Bully @bleakchesneywold.bsky.social  

Instagram  

Mr Bleak (@MrBleak5 )

Other blogs by Michael Bully

Bleak Chesney Wold   19th century related literature & dark history

a Burnt Ship                 17th century War & literature

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

World War 2 Poetry blog supports the Second World War Experience Centre  Please consider looking at their website and the SWWEC Youtube Channel 

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.

War Poets Review article by Michael Bully ' Lynette Roberts and the Second World War'. 

World ar 2 Poetry blog supports the Second World War Experience Centre  Please consider looking at their website and the SWWEC Youtube Channel 

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) 

Social Media 

Threads

MrBleak5

Mastadon 

Michael@BleakChesneyWold

Instagram  

Mr Bleak (@MrBleak5 )

World War 2 Poetry blog supports the Second World War Experience Centre  Please consider looking at their website and the SWWEC Youtube Channel 

Two Laments for Cologne 30th May 1942 -First Thousand Bomber Raid

                 Cologne 30th May 1942  -Thousand Bomber Raid 
                                             Mary E. Harrison/Vera Brittain

               

                                         The National Archives UK (Mass bomber raid on Cologne)-artist unknown

          On the night of 30th May 1942/31st May 1942 the first of Bomber Command's Thousand Bomber Raids was directed against Cologne.  Found two poems related to the attack, both by British women. 


Mary E. Harrison 


 As a member of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force ( WAAF) and an artist, Mary E. Harrison made a model of Cologne that was used in the planning of the raid of 30th May/31st May 1942. She was horrified to see photographs of the results of the bombing, which inspired her poem 'My Hands'

The poem was published in two Oasis Salamander Trust anthologies,  'More Poems of the Second World War ;the Oasis Selection''. (1989), also in 'The Voice of War' Poems of the Second World War ' (1995) . Then again in  'Shadows of War- British Women's Poetry of the Second World War' edited by Anne Powell, ( 1999). Not clear when it was first written or published. 

The biographical information on Mary in the 1995 'Oasis' anthology advised that she trained as a model maker at RAF Nuneham Courtney, Oxfordshire, and posted to Allied Central Interpretation Unit (Photographic Intelligence) RAF Medmenham , Bucks. 'My Hands' is the only poem that I have found by her in print, or referenced on line.

The poem's strength is the way that  forged connections between an artist's model and  reality. There is no attempt to talk about war in oblique detached terms. 



My Hands

" Do you know what it is like to have death in your hands?
When you haven't a murderer's mind?
Do you know how it feels when you could be the cause
Of a child being blind?.
How many people have died through me
From the skill in my finger tips?
For I fashion the clay and portray the landscape
As the fliers are briefed for their trips."

I have reproduced the first verse, a longer extract can be found on the Oasis Trust Website



Vera Brittain  

Vera Brittain was a pacifist  during World War 2, and leading member of the Peace Pledge Union. Though more famous for her writing relating to World War 1, Vera wrote extensively about World War 2 as well. 



Lament for Cologne 

"You stood so proudly on the flowing Rhine,
Your history mankind's, your climbing spires
Crowned with the living light that man desires
To gild his path from bestial to divine
Today, consumed by war's unpitying fires,
You lie in ruins,weeping for your dead
Your shattered monuments the funeral pyres

Perhaps, when passions die and slaughters cease
The mothers on whose homes destruction fell,
Who waiting sought their children through the hell
Of London, Warsaw, Rotterdam, Belgrade, 
Will seek Cologne's sad women, unafraid
And cry's God's cause is ours. Let there be peace.! " 

Reproduced by kind permission of Mark Bostridge and T.J. Brittain-Catlin, Literary Executors for the Estate of Vera Brittain 1970.

The poem was re-published in Vera's 'Seed of Chaos' (1944) ,but  originally published in 'The Friend' magazine on 19th June 1942. 'Seeds of Chaos' contained a  survey of Allied attacks on German cities. Vera stated that  Cologne had been subjected to repeated raids as from 30th May 1942 and by the time of writing the devastation of this  city was the equivalent of 'seventeen Coventries ' ; a reference to the notorious Coventry air raid of the 14th November 1940. In her memoir of 1925- 1950, 'Testament of Experience' ( 1957),, Vera claimed that  "news bulletins, boasted that 70,000 were killed or injured " during the 30th May 1942 night raid on Cologne : RAF figures mention 500 dead, with 5,000 injured. 

I am fascinated, and sometimes exasperated, by the writing of Vera Brittain and other pacifists of World War 2. The hopeless naivete, , the endless call for 'negotiations' with Germany when Appeasement had clearly failed, and their  lack of any coherent tactics to oppose Nazism. Moreover, I totally understand criticism  that the deaths incurred during the raid on Cologne 30th May 1942 are not extensive  compared with the millions of casualties incurred during the Eastern Front, the Holocaust. the Japanese invasion of China, the vast numbers of Polish slave labourers worked to death by the Germans, the hundreds of thousands of victims of the pro-Nazi Croatian Ustasha let loose in Yugoslavia, and more. 

 I can even see the objection that George Orwell and also some 'absolutist' pacifists had, albeit from opposing viewpoints, that Vera and the Bombing Restriction Committee were somehow trying to 'humanize' war via campaigning against the 'saturation' bombing of cities. 

But it's hard to remain aloof when Vera connects Cologne with other bombed cities of Europe. Her poem was drawing on the notion that there is something essential about all human experience during a bombing raid. That there's still a human price to pay in fighting even a 'just' war. Poetry is an obvious vehicle to remind one of this fact. Most of all, a writer of Vera's standing, publishing a statement lamenting the German losses that resulted from RAF bombing, was a courageous act in 1942. 


'Seed of Chaos' was reprinted along with 'Humiliation of Honour' under the title 'One Voice-Pacifist Writings from the Second World War' -Vera Brittain, with a foreword by Shirley Williams. ( Continuum, 2005) 

An alternative view : George Orwell v, Vera Brittain

George Orwell was highly critical of 'Seed of Chaos' . 

 " Pacifism is a tenable position, provided that you are willing to take the consequences. But all talk of 'limiting' or 'humanizing' (sic) war is sheer humbug, based on the fact that the average human being never bother to examine catchwords. "

Tribune 19th May 1944.

The George Orwell v. Vera Brittain disagreement re-emerged in recent years, with an accusation that Vera falsely claimed that George Orwell changed his views on civilian bombing  in her book 'Testament of Experience' , which was  published well after Orwell's death in 1950.  The Orwell Society website  below links to a piece 'Vera Brittain v. George Orwell' by Richard Westwood , from February 12th 2012. 

Orwell Society

World War 2 Poetry blog supports the Second World War Experience Centre  Please consider looking at their website and the SWWEC Youtube Channel