Poets of World War II

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Overview

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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More About This Book

Overview

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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Editorial Reviews

The New York Review of Books
There's a freshness to the language of the best of these poems that finally speaks to the freshness of the combatants themselves—a haunted recognition that the corpses requiring contemplation were not men but boys, many of them still in their teens. Here were souls unfamiliar with the Homeric parallels their hacked, contorted bodies evoked....
Poets of World War II may well be the first anthology adequately to reflect the range of responses—and ultimately the depth of the hurt—of a war whose surviving veterans are now old men. -- Bard Leithauser
The Washington Post
… an intelligent and vital selection of 120 poems that are often hard-nosed and eloquent — John Palattella
Library Journal
These inaugural volumes in "The American Poets Project" series form a useful introduction to the evolution of modern American poetry in loose historical progression. The volume on Whitman, father of modern American poetry, restores the voice of a poet who initiated free verse to speak of a growing America and thus takes us into the 20th century and beyond. Fortunately, editor Bloom ignores all of the psycho-social-sexual labels doled out to Whitman and lauds him simply as "the principal writer that America...has brought to us." Selections include some of Whitman's best, e.g., "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" and the spiritual bridge between Whitman and his future readers, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." Millay, one of America's strongest female poets, is similar in her metrics to 19th-century poets, but her flamelike intensity is pure 20th century. When she died in 1950, her poetry almost died with her; not until after the women's rights movements did her once acclaimed verse resurface. Editor McClatchy provides a generous sample of her poetry, highlighting her early years ("Renascence," "A Few Figs from Thistles"), the lesser-known poems never before published, and the posthumously published "Mine the Harvest." World War II sliced the 20th century in half and forever changed the American way of life as idealism and self-reliance ceded to franchising and instant gratification. The poets appearing in the World War II anthology-compiled by Harvey Shapiro, himself a poet of the war-portend this major mind shift by their tone, which questions rather than sanctions patriotism, valor, and the values of the 1940s. Arranged by the poets' birth dates, the poems include Robinson Jeffers's cynical nod to violence as a natural cause of earth events; Randall Jarrell's graphic depictions of airborne death; and John Ciardi's whimsical renditions of horror. Lastly, Karl Shapiro, one of the more influential voices of the late 20th century, displayed complex and contrary tendencies in both his life and his poetry. Editor Updike notes that Shapiro's experimentation with voices and forms alienated those who admired the metrical dexterity of his early poems. This commanding new series, which the Library of America will expand each spring and fall season by adding two or three titles, is a worthy addition to all libraries.-Nedra Crowe Evers, Sacramento P.L., CA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781931082334
  • Publisher: Library of America
  • Publication date: 7/28/2002
  • Series: American Poets Project
  • Pages: 262
  • Sales rank: 1,082,188
  • Product dimensions: 4.78 (w) x 7.80 (h) x 0.84 (d)

Meet 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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Table of Contents

Introduction
Defeat 1
from Canto LXXXIII 2
R.A.F 3
Pearl Harbor 12
The Bloody Sire 14
"Keeping Their World Large" 15
Three Star Final 17
from By the Well of Living and Seeing 18
"When he was small, when he would fall" 20
Ode to Our Young Pro-consuls of the Air 21
To a Military Rifle 26
Moonlight Alert 27
Night of Battle 28
The Witness 29
The Fury of Aerial Bombardment 31
A Ceremony by the Sea 32
from Aesthetics After War: Instruments 34
from A Song for the Year's End 37
Reflection by a Mailbox 39
Careless Love 40
September 1, 1939 41
Snatch 45
Patton 46
Rank 52
P.O.E. 55
Survival: Infantry 57
from Of Being Numerous 58
Rifle Range: Louisiana 59
Pacific 60
Amphibians 60
Three American Women and a German Bayonet 62
The Spool 64
The City of Beggars 68
The Airman Who Flew Over Shakespeare's England 70
The Raid 72
The Blinding of Isaac Woodard 74
Navigator 77
Shot Down at Night 78
Scyros 79
Troop Train 81
Full Moon: New Guinea 82
Lord, I Have Seen Too Much 83
Homecoming 83
The Moon and the Night and the Men 85
Eighth Air Force 87
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner 88
Transient Barracks 88
O My Name It Is Sam Hall 89
A Camp in the Prussian Forest 90
June 1940 92
The City as Hero 93
At the Grave of My Brother: Bomber Pilot 94
Explaining the Big One 94
Some Remarks When Richard Hugo Came 95
Men 96
To the Woman in Bond Street Station 97
Song 98
Elegy Just in Case 99
V-J Day 101
A Box Comes Home 102
Elegy for a Cove Full of Bones 103
Homecoming 105
Remembering That Island 106
Kilroy 108
"Vale" from Carthage 110
Ripeness Is All 111
from Beach Red 112
Negro Hero 115
On the Eve of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception: 1942 118
The Bomber 119
Memories of West Street and Lepke 121
Soldiers in Death 124
Memorial 125
Epithalamium in Olive Drab 126
Pidgin Pinch 127
Columbus Circle Swing 128
A Spring Memorandum: Fort Knox 129
Navy Field 132
Love Letter from an Impossible Land 133
Simile 136
Flight as a Way of Life 138
A Fable of the War 139
A Memory of the War 140
Night Operations, Coastal Command RAF 141
The War in the Air 141
IFF 142
On a Certain Engagement South of Seoul 144
Jethro Somes' Apostrophe to His Former Comrades 147
Mined Country 148
First Snow in Alsace 149
Place Pigalle 150
The Firebombing 152
Memorial Service for the Invasion Beach Where the Vacation in the Flesh Is Over 163
Portrait from the Infantry 164
Self-Exhortation on Military Themes 165
Stentor and Mourning 166
from Rites and Ceremonies: The Room 168
"More Light! More Light!" 170
Still Life 172
Where We Crashed 174
Spinizzola: Quella Cantina La 178
Note from Capri to Richard Ryan on the Adriatic Floor 180
Arm in Arm 182
Carentan O Carentan 183
Memories of a Lost War 185
Old Soldier 186
On the Ledge 187
A Bower of Roses 189
The Stoic: For Laura Von Courten 193
World War II 195
Mothball Fleet: Benicia, California 201
Battle Report 203
War Stories 206
Sniper 209
To Carelessness 210
To World War Two 210
Beachhead 214
Ten Days Leave 215
Returned to Frisco, 1946 216
The Lost Pilot 218
Biographical Notes 223
Sources and Acknowledgments 243
Notes 251
Index of Titles and First Lines 256
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