Acclaimed poet and World War II veteran Harvey Shapiro's pathbreaking gathering of work by more than sixty poets of the war years includes Randall Jarrell, Anthony Hecht, George Oppen, Richard Eberhart, William Bronk, and Woody Guthrie.
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*Starred Review* As Editor Shapiro points out, whereas several World War I poems were well known to those who served in World War II, the only well-known poem of the second war is Randall Jarrell's tiny chiller "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner." Perhaps that is because, Shapiro observes, the poems he presents are sharply different from the most famous World War I poems. The latter are by upper-class Englishmen who served as officers, and whose class solidarity shows in sweet patriotism and sweeter camaraderie, which endured after patriotism was soured by disillusionment. Shapiro's selections are by Americans who served as enlistees, older civilians jaundiced by the first war, and conscientious objectors. There is virtually no patriotism in them, and certainly no class feeling. They are the work of individuals wrenched out of normality and compelled to depend for their lives on others who in turn depend on them for theirs, but who don't feel compelled to like one another or to sacrifice themselves for their fellows. This state of consciousness is nowhere more forcefully expressed than in the harrowing long poem "World War II," about the crash of the bomber that Edward Field navigated into the North Sea. Many other fine poems come out of the war in the air, including Shapiro's own, though some of the sharpest, especially Louis Simpson's alarming rhymed quatrains and the excerpt from Peter Bowman's verse novel, Beach Red (1945), are infantrymen's work. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
About the Author
Harvey Shapiro, editor, flew thirty-five missions as an Air Force radio gunner during World War II and was decorated for his service. He has edited both The New York Times Book Review and The New York Times Magazine, and his many books of poetry include National Cold Storage Company (1988) and How Charlie Shavers Died and Other Poems (2001).
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Powerful,
By
This review is from: Poets of World War II (American Poets Project) (Hardcover)
This anthology is one in a series published by the American Poets Project, an effort intended to produce a first-time "compact national library of poets" (back cover). The volume under review here consists of 120 poems by 62 poets, where 42 are veterans, the others non-veterans, thus making it similar in concept to kindred anthologies such as Jan Barry's 'Peace is Our Profession: Poems and Passages of War Protest' (1981). As such, it includes works by conscientious objectors and other war-resisters such as Robinson Jeffers and William Stafford. All the contributors are a credible collection of Objectivists, Imagists, "followers of the formal school of Southern verse and dense rhetoric..." (xxxii). The editor is Harvey Shapiro, an Ivy League-educated poet, and veteran of thirty-five combat missions as a B-17 tail gunner. He sets a solemn tone for the volume, stating that although the Allies were victorious, "the sight of dead bodies is scattered among these poems the way bodies were washed up on the shores of invasion beaches..." (xix). Moreover, his purpose for this anthology is "to demonstrate that the American poets of this war produced a body of work that has not yet been recognized for its clean and powerful eloquence" (xx).
Shapiro gathers some of the best poetry of the war. Included are those infrequently published but no less majestically poignant air war poems by John Ciardi, James Dickey, Richard Eberhart, Richard Hugo (though his opus magnum, 'Mission to Linz', does not appear here), Randall Jarrell, and Howard Nemerov. Some of the best poems of ground combat are by Louis Simpson, George Oppen, and Anthony Hecht. Several poems are quite moving, such as James Tate's 'The Lost Pilot' (218-220), written for his father who was killed in action when Tate was five months old, and Peter Viereck's 'Vale from Carthage' (110-111), which Viereck wrote on the occasion of his brother's death in the European theater. There are sublime elegies like Vladimir Nabokov's "When he was small, when he would fall" (20), and Richard Eberhart's 'A Ceremony by the Sea' (31-34). Many poets achieve a powerful austerity through just a few lines, such as Samuel Menashe does in his 18-syllable, 5-line poem, 'Beachhead' (214). Yet, the poems here are not solely about combat and its affects, for they also inform the wider ontology of war, verse that emerges into the foreground of military victory to ask the unanswered questions of race and class. Compelling examples are Witter Bynner's 'Defeat', and Gwendolyn Brook's 'Negro Hero' (1, 115). For enthusiasts of poetry and studies of how war relates to literature and the arts, Shapiro's book proves an exemplary and diverse collection, and a perfect companion to Leon Stokesbury's 'Articles of War: A Collection of American Poetry About World War II' (1990). It includes an Introduction by Shapiro, and a very helpful biographical notes section. There has always been a debate over how poetry can close the aesthetic space between the poetry reader's expectations and the poet's ability to meet them. This work accomplishes that closure quite effectively despite the decades that have passed since the end of the Second World War.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WONDERFUL ADDITION TO A WONDERFUL SERIES,
This review is from: Poets of World War II (American Poets Project) (Hardcover)
This little volume is one of twenty seven volumes published so far by the Library of America and aptly named The American Poets Project. These publications are attempting to collect, present and a collection of the most significant American poetry of the many distinguished poets of our country, and so far they have done a wonderful job with this endeavor. This series is quickly becoming one of my favorite.
Poets of World War II has gleaned through and gathered the works of 62 American poets and presented us with 120 poems; the centrally theme being World War II. The mix and representation in this work is good. While the vast majority of the poems featured here are from poets who actually experienced combat, there is also a good representation from those who did not which include those who chose not to serve, some who had loved ones that did and everything in between. While volumes upon volumes of poetry inspired by World War I are available, World War II has been by comparison, overlooked to a great extent. The reader of this collection will be struck instantly by the change in attitude, ambiance and general outlook of this generation compared to the Previous. War is war and it is an ugly thing in everyway. Poems of the writers here reflect a much more pragmatic outlook, a harsher and less romantic view than many of the poems of previous wars. Many of these works have sharp twists of irony interwoven in their lines; a bitterness, yet in many cases, a bitterness mixed with pride and always, an amazement. The poets here are some of the best of their generation and era. Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, Conrad Aiken, Vladimir Nabokov, Eve Triem, Lincoln Kirsten, Woody Guthrie, John Frederick Nims, Howard Nemerov and Alfred Hayes are but a partial list of poets whose names appear. The works here represent many attitudes and observations. From the cutting irony of Lincoln Kristein's "Rank," and "Snatch," to the sheer terror of John Frederick Nims "Shot Down at Night.'' to William Bronk's "Soldiers in Death," the full gambit of war time experiences are exposed. We have the horror well represented of course, the death, pain, mass destruction along with the mind numbing fear, but also examined in a rather brutal but whimsical way, the visit to a house of prostitution by soldiers just off the front line. The poetry of war is not to the taste of all, but the subject matter here which is war, brings out the full array of human emotion (or in some cases the lack of), and digs deep into the very soul of those who where involved; those who were witnesses. There will be very little argument over the quality of the writing here no matter what the style used in each separate poem. These writers are the best of the best and most have or had cut their literary teeth in other genre. I cannot say that this is a pleasant read; a fun read, but it is certainly a worthwhile read and as we seem to be stuck in a perpetual cycle of war, it is quite likely an important read. No one can understand the un-understandable, but these little works go far in that direction This is a wonderful addition to this series and well worth the time to read and ponder. I highly recommend this work and indeed, this entire series. Don Blankenship The Ozarks
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A marvelous collection of poetry, based on America's experience during WWII,
By
This review is from: Poets of World War II (American Poets Project) (Hardcover)
When I was in high school, I was honored to be chosen to deliver Memorial Day addresses, General Logan's Orders (creating Memorial Day) as a junior and the Gettysburg Address as a senior. Logan's Orders capture some of the very worst of Victorian prose; Lincoln's Address is, of course, sublime -- I recited it to myself as I was writing this review and the hairs still rise up on the back of my neck.
In many ways, this collection of poetry did the same thing. The Library of America has started to publish (and send to you by email) extracts from its publications. The extract for last week featured a poem story written by Edward Field from Poets of World War II (American Poets Project) "In this poem recounting an actual incident, an American crew on a bombing mission is forced to ditch its plane in the North Sea. . . . We radioed our final position for help to come but had no idea if anyone happened to be tuned in and heard us, and we crouched together on the floor knees drawn up and head down in regulation position for ditching; listened as the engine stopped, a terrible silence, and we went down into the sea with a crash, just like hitting a brick wall, jarring bones, teeth, eyeballs panicky. Who would ever think water could be so hard? . . . This volume contains a remarkable collection of poems. Perhaps the most famous, Randall Jarrell's "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner", which reads in its entirety: From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose. Woody Gutherie's "The Blinding of Isaac Woodward" was important in forming my early commitment to civil rights works, and the lyrics still resonate: My name is Isaac Woodard, my tale I'll tell you; I'm sure it'll sound so terrible you might not think it true; I joined up with the Army, they sent me overseas; Through the battles of New Guinea and in the Philippines. On the 13th day of February 1946 They sent me to Atlanta and I got my discharge pin; I caught the bus for Winslow, going to meet my wife, Then we were coming to New York City to visit my parents both. ... There are many wonderful poems here, spare, direct, moving. I've included the Table of Contents in the first Comment to give you an idea of the riches here. Robert C. Ross 2010
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