Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource War Poetry Subject The topic of the resource Poetry of the First World War Description An account of the resource During the First World War, writers responded to this international upheaval. While early war poetry lauded values such as bravery, courage, and patriotism, later war poetry dealt with the horrors of war and its lasting impact. This collection reflects later war poetry, though it includes some earlier war poems as well. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1914-1928 Language A language of the resource English Poem Language sung, chanted, spoken, or written according to some pattern of recurrence that emphasizes the relationships between words on the basis of sound as well as sense: this pattern is almost always a rhythm or metre, which may be supplemented by rhyme or alliteration or both. The demands of verbal patterning usually make poetry a more condensed medium than prose or everyday speech, often involving variations in syntax, the use of special words and phrases (poetic diction) peculiar to poets, and a more frequent and more elaborate use of figures of speech, principally metaphor and simile. All cultures have their poetry, using it for various purposes from sacred ritual to obscene insult, but it is generally employed in those utterances and writings that call for heightened intensity of emotion, dignity of expression, or subtlety of meditation. Poetry is valued for combining pleasures of sound with freshness of ideas, whether these be solemn or comical. Some critics make an evaluative distinction between poetry, which is elevated or inspired, and verse, which is merely clever or mechanical. The three major categories of poetry are narrative, dramatic, and lyric, the last being the most extensive. "poetry." Oxford Reference. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100333227 If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire ever can warm me I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way. Dickinson/Higginson Correspondence: 16 August 1870 (Letter 342) http://archive.emilydickinson.org/correspondence/higginson/jnl342.html Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Dead Man's Dump Subject The topic of the resource War poetry by Isaac Rosenberg Description An account of the resource As a private on the front lines of the Western Front, Rosenberg was injured before he was reassigned to a works battalion. This experience is reflected in his poem “Dead Man’s Dump,” which is written from the point of view of a soldier going out on a limber, or carriage, to set up barbed wire in No-Man’s Land. As the man drives the carriage, “The wheels lurched over sprawled dead / But pained them not, though their bones crunched,” providing a graphic depiction of the dead who still seem to suffer in No-Man’s Land, despite their deceased condition (7-8). To make matters worse, the dying are among the dead in No-Man’s Land, slipping from stretchers, or already almost dead, mingling with the corpses ground beneath the wheels of the limber: “We heard his weak scream / We heard his very last sound, / And our wheels grazed his dead face” (84-86). The limber must lay out the barbed wire to protect the men who are still living, so the wheels continue their grisly procession. How long, Rosenberg seems to ask, until the living soldiers join the corpses in No-Man’s Land? The plunging limbers over the shattered track Racketed with their rusty freight, Stuck out like many crowns of thorns, And the rusty stakes like sceptres old To stay the flood of brutish men Upon our brothers dear. The wheels lurched over sprawled dead But pained them not, though their bones crunched, Their shut mouths made no moan. They lie there huddled, friend and foeman, Man born of man, and born of woman, And shells go crying over them From night till night and now. Earth has waited for them, All the time of their growth Fretting for their decay: Now she has them at last! In the strength of their strength Suspended—stopped and held. What fierce imaginings their dark souls lit? Earth! have they gone into you! Somewhere they must have gone, And flung on your hard back Is their soul’s sack Emptied of God-ancestralled essences. Who hurled them out? Who hurled? None saw their spirits’ shadow shake the grass, Or stood aside for the half used life to pass Out of those doomed nostrils and the doomed mouth, When the swift iron burning bee Drained the wild honey of their youth. What of us who, flung on the shrieking pyre, Walk, our usual thoughts untouched, Our lucky limbs as on ichor fed, Immortal seeming ever? Perhaps when the flames beat loud on us, A fear may choke in our veins And the startled blood may stop. The air is loud with death, The dark air spurts with fire, The explosions ceaseless are. Timelessly now, some minutes past, Those dead strode time with vigorous life, Till the shrapnel called ‘An end!’ But not to all. In bleeding pangs Some borne on stretchers dreamed of home, Dear things, war-blotted from their hearts. Maniac Earth! howling and flying, your bowel Seared by the jagged fire, the iron love, The impetuous storm of savage love. Dark Earth! dark Heavens! swinging in chemic smoke, What dead are born when you kiss each soundless soul With lightning and thunder from your mined heart, Which man’s self dug, and his blind fingers loosed? A man’s brains splattered on A stretcher-bearer’s face; His shook shoulders slipped their load, But when they bent to look again The drowning soul was sunk too deep For human tenderness. They left this dead with the older dead, Stretched at the cross roads. Burnt black by strange decay Their sinister faces lie, The lid over each eye, The grass and coloured clay More motion have than they, Joined to the great sunk silences. Here is one not long dead; His dark hearing caught our far wheels, And the choked soul stretched weak hands To reach the living word the far wheels said, The blood-dazed intelligence beating for light, Crying through the suspense of the far torturing wheels Swift for the end to break Or the wheels to break, Cried as the tide of the world broke over his sight. Will they come? Will they ever come? Even as the mixed hoofs of the mules, The quivering-bellied mules, And the rushing wheels all mixed With his tortured upturned sight. So we crashed round the bend, We heard his weak scream, We heard his very last sound, And our wheels grazed his dead face. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Isaac Rosenberg Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/document/1704/1488">http://ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/document/1704/1488</a><br /><a href="http://ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/db/object/ww1/3268">http://ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/db/object/ww1/3268</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1917 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The Isaac Rosenberg Literary Estate. isaac rosenberg poem war poetry