J F Hendry

           
        J. F. Hendry   London Before Invasion: 1940

                     

                                           Picture Graham Sutherland 'Wrecked Public House ' 
                                           Thank you to Tate Images for its use-reference N5735

                                 
                                       London Before Invasion


                                       " Walls and buildings stand here still, like shells.
                                       Hold them to the ear. There are no echoes even
                                       Of the seas that once were. That tide is out
                                       Beyond the valleys and hills.

                                      Days dawn and die while the city assumes a distance of stars.
                                      It is the absence of the heart
                                      In the ebbing seas of heaven,
                                     An ebbing beyond laughter and too tense for tears.

                                     Now, imagination floats, a weed, on water's vacancy.
                                     Fates of women, lit with conscience of stone features.
                                     Flowers have a girl's irrelevance, and mind is no
                                     prescience.

                                    Flood-tides returning may bring with them blood and fire,
                                    Blenching with wet panic spirit that must be rock
                                    May being a future tossed and torn, as slippery as wrack,
                                    All time adrift in torrents of blind war. "


Glasgow born  J.F. (James Findlay) Hendry ( 1912- 1986),  served in the Royal Artillery and Amy Intelligence. Most known in World War 2 poetry circles for his involvement in the 'New Apocalypse' movement' , following the anthology of the same name that Hendry edited with Henry Treece, that was published in 1939. Two more such  anthologies 'The White Horseman' ( 1941) and ' Crown and Sickle'( 1944) were published. G.S Fraser, Norman McCaig, Vernon Watkins, were briefly associated them.

 Opposed to the 1930's  'Auden Generation' , the ' New Apocalyptics' were short lived as a movement and its harder to find another  group of poets who have attracted such unkind comments since the Georgians of the early 20th century. Andrew Sinclair sniped at Hendry and Treece for being 'leaders without a movement' , and denounced the poetry included in 'The White Horseman'  for  being " obscure, self conscious and adolescent'. Vernon Scannell accused them of promoting a " kind of zany automatic writing, most of which read like a drunken parody of Dylan Thomas" . George Orwell scoffed at them.


The New Apocalyptics  were uninterested  in  the use of social realism within poetry.  Mythological images prevailed in their work,  with inspirations taken from nature, pre-industrial ages, the theories of Freud, 1930's surrealism,  and Anarchism of the individualist variety. The movement itself  was short lived, though their influence lasted for another decade with the growth of the Romanticism in the 1940's.  By the 1950's, with the rise of The Movement poets and the Angry Young Men ( in both the theatre and in novels) , the work of the New Apocalypse seemed escapist and archaic. Henry Treece became better known in post war years for writing historical novels, particularly for young readers, and some quite delightful poetry such as 'The Magic Wood'.

J.F. Hendry had two poetry collections  published during World War 2, 'The Bombed Happiness'  (1942)  'The Orchestral Mountain' , neither attracted much attention.  But Keidrich Rhys included several of J.F.Hendry's poems in his seminal anthologies.  'Poems from the Forces' (1941)   and 'More Poems from the Forces' (1943)   But J.F. Hendry carried on writing. J.F. Hendry's post war work included 'Fernie Brae' ( 1947),  and  'Life of Rilke' (1982).



            Recently found a collection of poetry titled ' Poems of Today -Fourth Series' published in 1957, and looking at the 'best'  poetry from 1938-1957. This volume included just one J.F.Hendry poem 'The Churchillian Ode'.  Reminds one initially  of 17th century odes to Cromwell written by Andrew Marvell and John Dryden until they both embraced the Restoration . Or John Milton's sonnets dedicated to  Sir Henry Vane the Younger and General Fairfax . Quoting from the first few lines.

                              A Churchillian Ode

                              "The years grew tares for we did not tend them
                              Time was eaten by moths in an age of gold
                              And the sun eclipsed in a cloud of ignorance.
                              The hours sprang holes as we stared, until now, the
                              last,
                              We clasp in our hands a sheaf of bluebells in place
                              Of the rifle, and all our moment of laughter are
                                 frozen
                              Amid flaming towns, their echoes chill as the shade of
                              soul's vengeance.............."

There is a sort of awkward dreaminess with a bit of surrealism thrown in. 'London Before Invasion 1940' was written in 1940, published in his collection 'The Bombed Happiness' . This title was challenged by Andrew Sinclair as having implied "that there might be a liberation and joy in destruction."  This issue appears within 'London Before Invasion 1940 " - that somehow the course of history was entering a phase where human emotion simply didn't matter:   "An ebbing beyond laughter and too tense for tears"- whilst there is a terrible wait for the next tide to come rushing in again, bringing new horrors.

In wider contact, I doubt  that a New Apocalyptic such as J F Hendry was justifying destruction or finding something aesthetically pleasing about an air raid. He was a poet caught up in war,  trying to find a space for the individual, in a world where impersonal historical forces were ranging.



                                                                                                                            

Quotes by Andrew Sinclair were taken from ' War Like A Wasp -The Lost Decade of the Forties'
  ( 1989)

Quote by Vernon Scannell taken from 'Not Without Glory Poets of the Second World War' (1976)


Please take a look at the companion blog to this one A Burnt Ship , dealing with poetry & prose relating to 17th century warfare.
 
There is also the  Bleak Chesney Wold  blog about 19th century 'dark' history. 

Wladyslaw Szlengel - Poet of the Warsaw Ghetto

                      Poem: A Small  Station called Treblinka 

                                                 

                                               

Warsaw Ghetto: Zelaznej Bramy (Iron Gate) Square , ghetto wall and Lubomirski palace

Walyslaw Szlengel was born in Warsaw, between 1911-1914, the exact date is disputed. He is most known for using poetry to chronicle the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

Writing poetry at an early age, Szlengel was already published in literary journals in 1930. It was not long before he was also writing songs and directing cabaret performances, solely in Polish. Some sources maintain that his father, who died in 1934, was a theatre director. Szlengel spent a few months towards the end of 1939 until the early part of 1940 in the town of Bialystock, which was in the Soviet occupied part of Poland but returned to Walicow Street, Warsaw, which  in November 1940 was incorporated into the notorious Warsaw Ghetto.

The Warsaw Ghetto was the area where all Jews of the City were confined behind barbed wire fences and high walls as from November 1940. Jews from other parts of Poland and from Germany, along with Roma people were moved there with as many as 400,000 people being held there . Overcrowded accommodation, wretched conditions, with only an entitlement to starvation rations, as many as ten per cent of the population perished. Random killings by the Germans, public executions of those who fell foul of regulations, the sight of  inhabitants expiring from illness or starvation,  increased the terror and sense of despair.  On 22nd July 1942,  deportations by train began-supposedly on the grounds of 'resettlement; in the east - but the actual destination was the death camp at Treblinka, around fifty miles north-east of Warsaw. As many as 6,000 people could be moved out in a day.

 Szlengel carried on writing, and performing, managing to secure  regular employment at the  coffeehouse Cafe Sztuka in Lesno Street 2 .  Vladyzslaw Szpilman accompanied various artists on piano including the popular singer Wiera Gran.  Cafe Sztuka is portrayed in Ronan Polanski's 2002 film about Szpillman- 'The Pianist' . The weekly Cabaret night 'Life Journal' was organised by Szlengel and where possible satire was encouraged at the expense of the authorities. It seems that Szlengel was using both Polish and Yiddish by this point. However in Polanski's film, the subversive nature of the cabaret at Cafe Sztuka is missed, and one gets an impression of Jews who had money enjoying themselves in the Cafe, being supposedly  oblivious to the suffering of the wider community. Cafe Sztuka was closed, most likely between 19th-22nd of July 1942.

 Wladyslaw Szlengel and his wife were forced to work in a brush factory, but carried on organising literary evenings, and presenting further poetry   The Ghetto population was gradually reducing due to deportation though the Nazis were prepared to leave 'productive' Jews working. In October 1942 Jewish Resistance groups merged together to form the organisation ZOB. Word reached them that the trains were in fact going to Treblinka , a death camp.

 Having the Warsaw Ghetto largely full of younger and physically stronger people, who had no illusions of the dangers they were in, stimulated a number of skirmishes with Germans and those collaborating with them as from January 1943. When the Germans arrived to organise a final mass deportation resistance culminated in the magnificent  Warsaw Ghetto Uprising that begun on 19th April 1943 and lasted until 10th May 1943. Wladyslaw Szlengel and his wife were shot by Germans when the house they were hiding in was stormed on 8th May 1943.

Though the Uprising was facing impossible odds, it is generally regarded as both an act of great  heroism and defiance but also for inspiring the 1944 Warsaw Rising, showing that the Germans were by no means invincible and could be confronted.

I am pleased to be able to reproduce the  Waldysaw Szlengel  poem 'A Small Station Called Treblinka', reproduced here by kind permission of Halina Birenbaum     from the website http://www.zchor.org which features a selection of his work in different languages on the site  Szlengel webpage 

What makes the poem quite haunting is that it is written in the present tense, and though the station itself seems unremarkable, one can never purchase a return ticket. It is not known how widely circulated the poem was, but certainly resistance workers with in the Ghetto were issuing proclamations desperately trying to warn the remaining populace of the dangers they were in.

                                                 Władysław Szlengel

                                                'A Small Station Called Treblinka'

                                               On the line between Tluszcz and Warsaw
                                               From the railway station Warsaw - East
                                               You get out of the station
                                               and travel straight…

                                              The journey lasts
                                              sometimes 5 hours and 45 minutes more
                                              and sometimes the same journey lasts
                                              a whole life until your death …

                                              And the station is very small
                                              three fir trees grow there
                                              and a regular signboard saying
                                              here is the small station of Treblinka...
                                              here is the small station of Treblinka...

                                              And not even a cashier
                                              gone is the cargo man
                                             and for a million zloty
                                             you will not get a return ticket

                                             And nobody waits for you in the station
                                             and nobody waves a handkerchief towards you
                                             only silence hung there in the air
                                             to welcome you in the blind wilderness.

                                            And silent are the three fir trees
                                            and silent is the black board
                                            because here is the small station of Treblinka...
                                            here is the small station of Treblinka...

                                            And only a commercial board
                                            stands still:
                                           "Cook only by gas"

* Translated from Polish to Hebrew by Halina Birenbaum and from Hebrew to English by AdaHoltzman. Yehuda Poliker, son of an Auschwitz Holocaust survivor from Thessalonika, wrote music to the poem and it is featured  on his album: "Ashes and Dust"

On 2nd August 1943, a rebellion broke out at Treblinka itself, when a number of prisoners raided the armoury and organised a mass breakout. The Germans began to start dismantling Treblinka in the Autumn of 1943, and it had virtually fallen into disuse by the time the Red Army took the district in July 1944. Another reason to read the poem to ensure that the horror of  Treblinka is remembered, along with Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the mass breakout at Treblinka itself.



Sources

 Wladyslaw Slegel- The Ghetto Poet

Culture.PL -Polish Cultural website

The Manhatten Review

Background information on the Warsaw Ghetto by one of the Uprising's leading participants, Marek Edelman can be found here

General News 

Companion blogs

Great War at Sea Poetry Blog

Bleak Chesney Wold   new blog launched 2nd February 2023 Charles Dickens/ 19th century history

A Burnt Ship    Stuart era War and Literature

UPDATE 2025 

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

Sean Jennett Missing Poet from Faber &Faber

                             
                                          Missing Poet from Faber &Faber    
                                       
                                               

                                                 
                                           

                                        'Shelter Experiments' John Piper 1943 
                                        IWM ART LD 3859  in public domain courtesy of the IWM/
                                       Wikipedia Commons 



     I was recently reminded of the  'Earth Voices Whispering- An anthology of Irish War Poetry 1914-1945' edited by Gerald Dawes, published in 2008 It was intriguing to find poems by Sean Jennett included, who doesn't seem to have been included in any anthologies since 'Poetry of the Forties-introduced and edited by Robin Skelton' (1968) .

Also managed to locate Jennett's collection  'Always Adam' from 1943, from the National Poetry Library, at the Southbank Centre, which contains 51 poems, written from 1935 onward.

 Sean Jennett, who worked for Faber & Faber' as a typographer during World war 2, who has been added to the ranks of 1940's 'neglected' poets. His Wikipedia entry consists of three sentences , maintaining  that he was born in 1912- and died in 1981, wrote 'The 'Making of Books ' in 1951 and went on to write travel books. The British Library online catalogue confirms this, with 'The Making of Boooks' seeing several editions.


                                        XXXVII

                            We talked of war with light and easy lips,
                            jesting upon our action, this or that,
                            if it came to the last, and while we chattered
                            we drank our coffee in delicious sips
                            and watched the soft, contented cafe cat.

                            But then the woman in the wicker chair
                            cried Havoc! and suddenly I was afire
                            because I saw, under the skirts of light,
                            the corpses of our laughter and delight
                            smashed and dismembered, bloodily bespattered
                            across the red carpet....

                                                           And still the solemn stare
                           of all the sleepy cats in Oxfordshire
                                           1937

One of the most interesting pre-war  poems about World War 2 - if such a genre is possible. The strange reflection of an unreal sedate world detached from the reality of war that is about to strike them. The motif-'Cry havoc and unleash the dogs of war'  from Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar', was repeated in Beverley Nichols book 'Cry Havoc' from 1934, advocating Pacifism, a stance Nichols was later to reject.

                                          XLII. AUTUMN 1940

                           The days were glorious- we remember that
                           because the clear September of that year
                           was good for bombers. We remember it
                           because the sky screamed and we were mere
                           items of wreckage in the ruined day,
                           the half- face or the limbless or the dead.
                           the convenient basis for the hero's fame,
                           the rescued in the hospital bed.

                           I was the man in the collapsing tower.
                           I was the body in the flooded shelter.
                           I was the mad objector shifting stone,
                          the conscious saint arising in his hour.
                          I was the bomber, the breaker and the welder
                          I was the shattered and the exulting son.
                                                                                 1942

Strange understatement -September 7th 1940 is of course accepted as the first day of the London Blitz.

                                 News                                                                                                                                                        
Best wishes for 2019 to all Blog visitors from round the world .  Have written an article on British World War 2 poetry for 'Everyone's War' , the magazine published by the Second World War Experience Centre.


I am working on a further post for the companion blog to this one A Burnt Ship -devoted to 17th century war & literature.

UPDATE 2025 

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

Timothy Corsellis

                                                Timothy John Manley  Corsellis 

                                 ( 1921-1941)
                                     

                                  Timothy Corsellis in 1938, in the Public Domain via Wikipedia 

                

                          Was reminded of  the work of Timothy Corsellis after finding  two Youtube clips ( linked below) of the actor Timothy Bentinck reading two Corsellis poems ' Dawn after the Raid' and 'Engine Failure'.  Also learnt that Timothy - most known as  David Archer from BBC Radio 4's drama 'The Archers'- was named after Timothy Corsellis, and his father,Henry Bentinck  was friends with Corsellis.

Born on  21st January 1921, Corsellis' father was a barrister-Douglas Corsellis - who lost an arm fighting in the Gallipoli campaign, and died in a flying accident in 1930. Attending Walmer School in Kent, Timothy Corsellis  went on to study at Winchester College.

It is extremely difficult to offer much of an opinion concerning the work of someone who died at the age of twenty. All one can say is that his work that remains shows a great range of topics. The aforementioned  'Engine Failure' concerns RAF training, 'After the Raid'  tackles the impact of an air raid on London. And Tim Bentinck's delivery is superb.  'There Is A Meeting Place in Heaven' is Christian themed. Corsellis also wrote a poem titled 'Stephen Spender' some two weeks before he died, in which he offers his impression of meeting Spender, most probably at the offices of 'Horizon' magazine in 1941.

                                 

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Timothy Corsellis declined to go to university when leaving Winchester College in 1938. He started work at Wandsworth Town Hall , and registered as a Conscientious Objector in April 1939.  After the fall of Dunkirk, Corsellis asked to be removed from the list of Conscientious Objectors, and took up training with the RAF . However, Corsellis cited a conscientious objection to bombing civilian and felt unable to take up a post within Bomber Command. He received an honourable discharge from the RAF in early 1941 and worked was an Air Raid warden in London, seeing some of the most horrific sights of the Blitz.

In August 1941, Corellis joined the  as 2nd officer Air Transport Auxiliary, which effectively meant flying planes from factories to various RAF bases. On 10th October 1941 , flying from Luton to Carlisle, Coresllis plane accidentally crashed  near Dumfries, and he died instantly.

Have shamelessly drawn on an  article 'From Winchester to War: Timothy Corsellis ( 1921-1941) ,  which originally appeared on the War Poets Association website : Informed that this article was written by Helen Goethals. 

The Winchester College at War website has a different timeline- linked below. 

The Young Poets Network presents the Timothy Corsellis prize for poetry written  by those aged between 18-25 who are appraising World War 2 poets.  Of course any initiative to introduce World War 2 poetry is much welcomed,and the latest new (2018) can be found here

The poem 'What I Never Saw'  looks at the tedium of war in a most  anti-heroic fashion, showing has a large part of war can be 'waiting for something to happen'.

                       What I Never Saw (extract) 

                         What I never saw
                         Were the weary hours of waiting while the
                                                              sun rose and set,
                         The everlasting eye turned upwards to the sky,
                         Watching the weather which said,
                          Thou shalt not fly'.

                         We sat together as we sat at peace
                         Bound by no ideal of service
                         But by a common interest in pornography and
                                             a desire to outdrink one another


                            War was remote;
                          There was a little trouble in Abyssinia;
                          Some of us came from Kenya and said
                         'Why I was on the spot all the while
                          And the Italians sprayed the roadsides with
                                                                   mustard gas'

                           Theirs were the stories of war.


                           Then came the queuing, the recurrent line of
                                                                    pungent men
                           Dressed in dirt with mud eating their trouser legs,
                           The collar that is cleaner than the shirt
                           And the inevitable adjectives.

                           The papers ran out early today,
                           There was no butter for the bread at breakfast,
                           Nobody calls us at dawn
                            We never strain or sweat,
                           Nor do they notice when we come in late.


                            When I was civilian I hoped high,
                            Dreamt my future cartwheels in the sky'
                            Almost forgot to arm myself
                             Against the boredom and the inefficiency
                            The petty injustice and the everlasting grudges.
                             The sacrifice is greater than I expected

Of course there is the irony of the last line 'The sacrifice is greater than I expected' when considering Corsellis' death in a military accident.


                             "I" Always "I"

                            I passively acquiesce in the avalanche of death
                            Under my breath I lose the sincere feeling
                            That while hands are dealing in sin the soul is free.
                            No harm to me, justifying the material deed
                           With the new born seed of a higher emotion,
                           A sudden devotion to a greater thing than imperial expansion

                         "I" always "I" in this turmoil of souls;
                         God above holds millions of lives in his arms
                          Yet the word harm means only one thing to this mind
                         Help me to find an idea successive to soliptic I!
                         Let them all die; one day a bullet inscribed with
                               name
                         Shall find the same written upon my heart with shame.

                        Why in the middle of complete conflagration
                         Involving a nation, must the solipsist idea
                        Rise? To conquer fear ? To hide from a wrangling soul
                       The extinction of the whole? Give me part of God's
                       unselfishness;
                       From the centre of unrest make me realise
                       That no man dies; not the souls that once spoke from
                             behind gristle eyes.
                     
                      From 'More Poems From The Forces' edited by Kheidrych Rhys, 1941

Have added this poem simply because it's so curious. It as if Corsellis is writing a philosophy essay, trying to make sense of a being young and caught up in war. Trying to find some greater meaning wrestling with solipsism- 'the self is all that can be known to exist' and as Christian Corellis is trying to reconcile his faith with whilst caught up in a 'complete conflagration'.  I don't think that the poem has great literary merit- but as a section of war memoir it is fascinating.

Thank you to Patrick Villa of the War Poets Association for pointing out a couple of errors in the original post- hopefully now corrected. 

Links 

Winchester College Tribute                  

Timothy Bentinck  reads  Dawn After The Raid    on Youtube

Timothy Bentinck reads   Engine Failure              on Youtube

Timothy Corsellis Prize   page maintained by the National Poetry Society /Young Poets Network

Commonwealth Wargraves Commission  entry for Timothy Corsellis

War Poets Association  page on Timothy Corsellis

Further poems found by Corsellis  Interesting blog post about further poems and notebooks by Timothy Corsellis that were featured on BBC Antiques Roadshow in 2012.

A Burnt Ship blog    Companion blog to this one. Poetry & prose related to the Stuart era

Bleak Chesney Wold new blog launched 3rd February 2023 Charles Dickens/ 'dark' 19th century history 

Books 

A biography titled 'The Unassuming Sky, The Life and Poetry of Timothy Corsellis' by Helen Goethals was published in 2012.

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

John Pudney 'For Johnny' and other 'Songs'

                       John Sleigh Pudney 1909- 1977


                       

                    Bristol Beaufighter Mark IF of No. 252 Squadron RAF at Chivenor, Devon.
                              CH17305 , Imperial War Museum, photo taken by Mr. B J H Daventry

                                   John Pudney's poem 'For Johnny' was one of the most famous 'War in the Air' World War 2 poems. The writer was a former journalist,  who served as a squadron leader in RAF intelligence during the War. The poem was written in 1941 on the back of an envelope during an air raid alert in London, then later submitted to News Chronicle , who published the poem. 'For Johnny' also appeared in Pudney's collection of war poems titled 'Dispersal Point' ( from 1942, reprinted the same year, and again in 1943).

John Pudney had already published poetry as from 1933.  He also edited the collection 'Air Force Poetry' (1944) with Henry Treece and had seven poems included in the anthology 'More Poems From The Forces' edited by Keidrych Rhys , (1944).  He also wrote short stories about his life in the RAF under the names of PERSPEX

Famous for its simplicity, and its message that the best tribute to be paid to a deceased pilot is to take care of his children.  And for being read at the end of the film ' The Way to the Stars'   by Michael Redgrave .



                                        For Johnny


                                         Do not despair
                                         For Johnny-head-in-air,
                                         He sleeps as sound
                                         As Johnny under ground.

                                        Fetch out no shroud
                                        For Johnny-in-the-cloud,
                                        And keep your tears
                                        for him in after years.

                                        Better by far
                                        For Johnny-in-the cloud;
                                       To keep your head,
                                       And see his children fed.



In 1976, a collection of 23 World War 2  poems written by John Pudney was published , all taken from his 1957 'Collected Works', and not surprisingly, was titled 'For Johnny'. In the introduction, Pudney explained that there was no particular 'Johnny' in mind, which added to the poem's appeal as readers could pick an RAF casualty they knew,  and personalise the poem.


John Pudney's work has been included in subsequent anthologies such as 'The Terrible Rain'  and 'I Burn for England' . Not meeting with universal approval . Fellow poet Vernon Scannell  ( who served in the army during the War ) was quite catty about Pudney  "John Pudney's facile verses were popular during the war but their shallow sentimentality would be unlikely to find admirers now " ( 'Not Without Glory -poets of the second world war'-1976).

It is easy to  agree with Scannell if we are looking for literary merit.  Pudney's work is comforting in the way a well chosen  'with sympathy ' card can be. Or occasionally his poetry  veers to being too  clever such as  the line "Timelessly in time with time"- from the poem 'Air Gunner' below,  which could be a Yes song lyric from the early 1970's.  But John Pudney did make a significant contribution to World War 2 poetry, and deserves a mention, and can't just be dismissed in one line.

And there's a massive discussion to be had. World War 2 poetry can be appraised as literature, but also a source of writing that feeds a cultural need. 'For Johnny' might be sentimental but it has worked as war poetry if so many people can find it relevant to the whole trauma of  loss during war. I had also wondered if Vernon Scannell, who had traumatic experiences due to fighting in the North African and Normandy campaigns, and been jailed as a deserter, resented John Pudney possible lack of direct combat experience ? Scannell's 'Not Without Glory' does not draw on the writer's own war experience or his own poetry.

Two further poems from the collection  'For Johnny' . As far as I can tell they were both from around 1941 or 1942 .  'Missing' doesn't need much further comment, but draws on a similar theme to 'For Johnny' - the poem. 'Air Gunner' was more literary, about a youth finding his way into this role.


                         
                                                 Missing

                                 Less said the better.
                                 The bill unpaid, the dead letter,
                                 No roses at the end,
                                 Of Smith my friend



                                  Last words don't matter
                                  And there are none to flatter
                                  Words will not fill the post
                                  Of  Smith, the ghost.


                                  For Smith, our brother,
                                  Only son of loving mother,
                                  The ocean lifted, stirred
                                  Leaving no word.




                                          Air Gunner

                                   The eye behind this gun made peace
                                   With a boy's eye with doubted, trembled.
                                   Guileless in the mocking light
                                   Of frontiers where death assembled.

                                   Peace was as single as the dawn,
                                   Flew straightly as the birds migrating,
                                   Timelessly in time with time,
                                   Purposeful, uncalculating

                                   So boyish doubt was put away:
                                   The man's eye and boy's were one.
                                   Mockery and death retreat
                                   Before the eye behind the gun.


In the publisher's blurb for 'Dispersal Point' third edition 1942, John Pudney was quoted as saying ;
"I hope these songs will be taken as a simple commentary on the Service and on war occasions generally. They are  only songs -not written in tranquillity, but in odd places and corners never far from the sound of aircraft. "
This is perhaps the final word to be said on his war poetry.


Links

John Pudney entry from Science Fiction Encyclopedia

Don't forget the companion blog to this one A Burnt Ship   17th century related war poetry and prose.

 February 3rd 2023 New blog launched BleakChesneyWold Charles Dickens/ 'dark' 19th century history 

UPDATE 2025 

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

Anna Akhmatova's Poetry / Al Stewart track 'Roads To Moscow'

    
    
                  Anna Akhmatova ( Anna Akhmatova Gorenko)         

                        1922 portrait of Anna Akhmatova by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin ( courtesy of Wikipedia) 
                                          

                                     "At the burial of an epoch
                                      no psalm is heard at the tomb
                                      soon nettles and thistles                                       
                                      will decorate the spot 
                                     The only busy hands are those 
                                      of the grave-diggers .Faster! Faster!
                                      and it's quiet, Lord, so quiet
                                      you can hear time passing."
                                      Anna Akhtmatova poem,  'In 1940' 
                                    
                                       
                
Many basic details of concerning the life of Anna Akhmatova are not agreed upon. Some sources state that Anna Akhmatova was born in St. Petersburg in 1888, others offer Boshoy Fontain, near Odessa, Ukraine in 1889.  Associated with  the Acemist poetry movement centred round St .Petersburg, Anna Akmatova married fellow poet Nikolay Gumilyov in 1910- though divorced in 1918. Their son, Lev Gumilyov was born in 1912, and collections of Anna's work appeared in 1912 and 1914.  

Though met with official disapproval during the Bolshevik regime, further collections of Anna Akhmatova's work appeared in 1917, and two in 1921. However, Nikolay Gumilyov was executed in 1921 for alleged taking part in an anti-Bolshevik conspiracy.  Anna Akhmatov found that her poetry was no longer permitted to be published, and she survived as a translator and literary critic ,becoming a specialist on the work of Pushkin. Lev Gumilyov served three sentences under Stalin's regime. Anna Akhmatov's close friend, the fellow poet Osip Mandelshtam, was hauled away by police in front of her , and imprisoned.  Two future husbands would also be jailed- in fact her third husband, the art historian Nikolai Punin died in a camp in 1934,

When World War 2 began, Russia had already  signed the Nazi-Soviet pact with Germany. Anna Akhmatov's poetry was allowed to be published again in 1940, but a full collection would not appear until 1961- one source I consulted, stated 1965. One of her 1940 poems - ' To The Londoners,' was a written dedication to those who were facing the London Blitz. 

Following the launching of Operation Barbarossa ,Stalin permitted Anna Akhmatov to broadcast live to the women of Leningrad as the blockade of the city began in September 1941, but she departed the city in the Spring of 1942 for Tashkent, Uzbekistan. One account has Anna flying out of the city , clutching the manuscript  for   Shostakovich's 7th Symphony - The Leningrad Symphony'. Whilst absent from Leningrad, Anna Akhmatov read poetry to the wounded troops. In June 1944 Anna Akhmatov returned to the city. During this time her poetry began to be published again, and in 1945 she performed her work to an audience of some 3,000 people at an event in Moscow, and received a standing ovation.  

However in 1946, the Soviet authorities clamped down on her work. An extensive collection of Anna Akhmatov's poetry being prepared for publication was banned. A high standing member of the Politburo, Anrei Zhadanov, notoriously denounced her work for being "utterly individualistic" and referred to Anna Akhmatov as " a nun and a whore, who combines harlotry with prayer."


Following her son Lev Gumilyov 's third arrest and imprisonment in 1949, Anna destroyed a substantial amount of her own work including a play that she had written during her stay at Tashent. 

However, following 'The Thaw' after Stalin's death, Anna Akhmatov was allowed to have her work published again with 22 of her poems appearing in an official anthology of Soviet poems in 1958.  In 1959 her membership to the Soviet Union of Writers was restored, and Anna was permitted to embark on a foreign travel . Following more of her work being published, Anna Akhmatova was permitted to travel abroad again in 1965.
On 5th March 1966 Anna Akhmatov died after a short illness. 

Anna Akhmatova seemed to have lost so many people close to her during the Revolution, the Purges, World War 2 that she reached a state evoked in her poem 'The Return' from 1944  

"The souls of my dears have all flown to the stars
Thank God there's no one left for me to lose"


A cycle of 16 short poems 'The Winds of War  appeared in 'Second World War Poems-chosen by Hugh Haughton ' ( Faber & Faber, 2004). Here is number three in the series.



FIRST LONG-RANGE FIRING ON LENINGRAD

And people's colourful daily round
Suddenly changed drastically
But this was not a city sound,
Not one heard in the villages.
It resembled a distant peal of thunder
As closely as one brother resembles another,
But in thunder there's the moisture,
Of cool cloud towers
And the yearning of the meadows-
For the news of joyous showers,
But this was like scorching heat, dry,
And we didn't want to believe
The rumour we heard-because of
How it grew and multiplied,
Because of how indifferently
It brought death to my child. 

September 1941

Yet there were notes of victory within the poetry cycle. 

 15 JANUARY  27, 1944

And on starless January night,
Amazed at its fantastic fate,
Returned from the bottomless depths of death,
Leningrad salutes itself


16 LIBERATION 

A clean wind rocks the firs'
Clean snow covers the ground.
No longer hearing the tread of the enemy,
It rests, my land 

February 1945 



Links

10 Anna Akhmatova Poems to Read when Life, Love, and Politics Are Hard


Youtube

The Muse of Keening  Short film about the life of work  including as interview with step-daughter.

Poem-'Requiem'       Anna Akhmatova's most famous poem read out with some minimal electronic backing. Superb.

Contemporary  St Petersburg website about Anna Akhmatova (English language)

 St. Petersburg.com entry for Anna Akhmatova Museum


Recommended Books

'Anna Akhmatova Poems' Selected and Translated by Lyn Coffin -Introduction by Joseph Brodsky'
 published by 'Norton & Company' London/New York 1983

'Anna Akhmatova Selected Poems-Selected, Translated and Introduced by Stanley Kuntiz with Max Hayward'
published by Collins Harvill, London 1989


Al Stewart song 'Roads To Moscow'  



Folk rock singer-songwriter Al Stewart has excelled in writing countless songs with a historical theme.  My favourite is 'Road To Moscow'  from the 1973 album 'Past, Present and Future'. Unfortunately not in a position to  reproduce the lyrics so can only quote from them

'Roads to Moscow' tells the story of a Red Army soldier serving at the time of Operation Barbarossa. The first verses describe the Soviets retreating deep into Russia, then in turn drive the Germans back. The soldier begins to dream of his return home-but becomes a prisoner of war, but escapes after a day. He successfully  rejoins the Red Army. But only to be moved from the ranks and ordered to a  Soviet labour camp for allowing himself to be taken prisoner. The song ends with him gazing through the wire, realising that Winter was approaching.

"It's cold and damp in the transit camp
 The air is still and solemn
The pale sun of October whispers
The snow will soon be coming
And I wonder when I will be home again
And the morning answers never. "

The debate whether song lyrics about war can be counted as 'war poetry' seems hard to resolve. But if it is accepted that lyrics can be considered as war poetry, then 'Roads to Moscow' is a strong contender.

Links

Al Stewart explanation  of 'Roads to Moscow'

'Roads to Moscow' (song)   from 'Youtube'


Finally Please remember that there is a companion blog to this one called A Burnt Ship  about Stuart era War Poetry and literature. Also features contemporary fiction about the 17th century . 

New blog launched by Michael Bully in February 2023  Bleak Chesney Wold relating to Charles Dickens/ 'dark' Victoriana 

UPDATE 2025 

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