(I will be reviewing this poem from out of my anthology book One Hundred and One Famous Poems: With a Prose Supplement.) This poem is a brief three stanza poem written during the first world war by Canadian Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae. This poem was written as a dedication to a friend of McCrae's that died during the Second Battle of Ypres. This poem has become one of the most influential poems of WWI and the [British] Commonwealth countries. The poem had almost been thrown away but after it was published it would be used as a rallying tool for the Allied Powers. The most famous part of the poem is in the first stanza: "In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, flyScarce heard amid the guns below." This stanza inspired the "Remembrance poppies". Most in the USA would not recognize the flower (despite the fact that it was an American that started the use of Poppies to commemorate the war dead) but in the Commonwealth it has become a very visible symbol of war and memorial. "We are the Dead. Short days agoWe lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields."Like most war poems, it does meditate on the mortality of war and death, but as you can see it is brief. This poem was written early during the war and the true horrors that would define it had not been totally grasp. That is one of the characteristics of many poems written up to this point is the very post-Enlightenment, pro-war message. "Take up our quarrel with the foe:To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who dieWe shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields." This part would be used as an official propaganda piece for the war effort and one understands why. This poem would be a massively popular poem during and after the war. Many of the writers featured in One Hundred and One Famous Poems: With a Prose Supplement fought in WWI and almost all of them died. It is staggering how many of the most talented writers of that generation fought and dies in WWI. As famous as the poem is it is not the best poem to come out of WWI (many think that honor goes to Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum est which describes in graphic detail what a toxic gas attack was like (this was the first 20th century war to use biological weapons) and which I may someday review myself) but again it is one of the most famous and simplest-which may explain how it gets snubbed more in modern times. McCrae himself died of pneumonia on Jan 28 1918 in France.
As a disclaimer like a few books I have on my shelves, I have not read this particular edition but it seems the best to use to write the review I wish to.Today is ANZAC Day in Australia. This is, for those without any Australian background knowledge, the day when we celebrate our Australian and New Zealand soldiers who fought in the World Wars and in more modern wars. We celebrate their courage and we celebrate their loss so that we currently possess what we have gained. War is not something that has ever touched me personally. I'm not naive enough to suggest that I could ever gain a true insight into war without being touched by it in some way. But what I have seen informs me that war is one of the great tragedies of humanity. One of those times where no one wins out. And yet there are heroic deeds done by individuals, which is something many poets and authors touch upon in their work. In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, flyScarce heard amid the guns below.We are the Dead. Short days agoWe lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.Take up our quarrel with the foe:To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who dieWe shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.There is another poem, The Ode to Remembrance, often read here on ANZAC Day. A final line is added to conclude this poem, Lest We Forget. I find this one of the most poetic lines I've heard. It both marks and comments on the fact that poems like In Flanders Fields reflect that those who die in wars nobly become immortalised, that they have exhibited the spirit of their nation in their patriotism. And yet there is a sense of caution: let us learn from those who now sleep in Flanders fields and across the world as a result of war.Lest we forget. One of the most potent of all cautions against the repetition of history.
