[Marcia Karp]

To complement some of the war poems on the boards --

November

We saw leaves go to glory,
Then almost migratory
Go part way down the lane,
And then to end the story
Get beaten down and pasted
In one wild day of rain.
We heard “’Tis over” roaring.
A year of leaves was wasted.
Oh, we make a boast of storing,
Of saving and of keeping,
But only by ignoring
The waste of moments sleeping,
The waste of pleasure weeping,
By denying and ignoring
The waste of nations warring.

[Robert Frost]

I love this poem. A couple of weeks ago I was out with friends after 2 of them had done a reading. Frost’s “October” was praised. I then recited “November.” It was so sweet of the waitress to stand, listening, until the bitter end before asking us what we wanted.

You’ll find your own way through this, but I want to say that among the poem’s virtues is what it knows. It doesn’t pretend to experience. It leaves soldiering to other poems, by other writers, and yet speaks profoundly about warring.

I’d also like to mention Jon Stallworthy’s War Poet, a 12-page poem, published by Greville Press Pamphlets, Warwick UK, 2009. The poem is drenched in truths about war and soldiers. It is formally quite interesting, as the sections take a variety of shapes. It is well-worth reading: sober and moving.


Armistice Forever,
Marcia