Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial
Office
Did Civilians Write Poetry Back in the Day?
A medical
professional, while taking my pulse
Asked me what I was
reading
Poetry,
I replied
Poetry of suffering
in the Second World War
Most of it by civilians
who were there
She asked:
Did civilians write
poetry back in th’ day?
I changed the topic
to my blood pressure
Second World War Poems
Ed. Hugh Haughton
London: Faber and Faber, 2004
This anthology is brilliant, with poems by soldiers, civilians, concentration
camp prisoners, and prisoners of war from many nations. Several of the poems
are anonymous, written on scraps of paper found on the bodies of the murdered.
There is much fashionable babble about my voice / our voices / authentic voices
/ my people’s voices, and so on, but here is a fine collection by people whose
voices were desperate to tell the truth, not indulge in self-pity, and find
beauty among the horror
