James Anderson Winn, an English professor at Boston University, has come out with an anthology of war poems, entitled The Poetry of War, linked here.
Winn laments that there aren't more poems emerging from Iraq and Afghanistan, other than Brian Turner's Here, Bullet that deal with larger themes than just combat veterans' personal pain (I'm paraphrasing.) At the risk of sounding glib, that's still fine with me because we've got to start somewhere, and reasoning from the specific (a veteran's own hurt and pain) to the general (the group of warriors, the country, or the wars themselves) will get there, in time. He also makes the point that much of the best war poetry in our lifetimes, speaking generally, came out of World War I, whereas World War II generated excellent novels. There's an article on Professor Winn and his new book, linked here; and a video of his discussing three war poems, linked here.
From the article:
Like many people in my generation, my most immediate experience with war was the war in Vietnam. Although I was lucky enough not to go there, I did get drafted in 1968 and found my time in the Army pointless and frustrating. So it was instructive to read poems by soldiers who genuinely believed in the rightness of the wars they were fighting. I remain deeply skeptical of war as a means of bringing about change, but I respect the determination and heroism of soldier-poets from many eras, and I have tried, in my book, to honor their memory.
Also from the article: Winn's best answer, in response to the best question asked him:
What can poetry tell us about war that news accounts or history books cannot?
For journalists, and even for historians, war is a contest. One side wins, the other loses; the balance of power in some part of the world may change as a result. But poetry is an ideal form for expressing ambiguity, and thus for describing the heroism of the vanquished, the intolerable cost of so-called victory, and above all, the complex and contradictory feelings of all those touched by war.
Editor's note: The post title is taken from a great line from Irish poet W.B. Yeats about the Easter Uprising of 1916. Now I'd like to find the source of a great line Winn uses in his videotaped talk, which says "...the hot lips of liberty which kiss men cold." That's a great jumping-off for something: not sure what yet. I guess I'll have to buy Winn's book to find out who said it first.
