Women+Poetry+&+Verse

Women's Poetry of World War One

by Spring Healy



As World War 1 slowly edged on, many people wrote poetry, documenting the terrible occurrences of the war. Some of these people were educated soldiers who had previously studied at colleges and universities, and some were just average soldiers looking for a way to escape the horrors of the war and found their way through writing. Although not always acknowledged, women also wrote some of the most powerful and insightful poetry about the war, and there are several reasons why they wrote what they wrote. Just like men, they needed something to do so they weren't always thinking about the war. Some women wrote letters to prisoners of war, and some wrote poetry about the war. Many women acted as nurses in the war, witnessed so many lives lost, and decided to write about that.

Nurses: With all the lives lost in the war, women felt the need to help in some way. Many women ended up volunteering as nurses, which was great inspiration for poetry. The following poem written by Eva Dobell in 1917 was composed about a young man she had had as a patient while working in a soldiers' hospital.

Pluck Crippled for life at seventeen,  His great eyes seems to question why:  with both legs smashed it might have been  Better in that grim trench to die  Than drag maimed years out helplessly.

 A child - so wasted and so white,  He told a lie to get his way,  To march, a man with men, and fight  While other boys are still at play.  A gallant lie your heart will say.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> So broke with pain, he shrinks in dread <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> To see the 'dresser' drawing near; <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> and winds the clothes about his head <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> That none may see his heart-sick fear. <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> His shaking, strangled sobs you hear.

<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> But when the dreaded moment's there <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> He'll face us all, a soldier yet, <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> Watch his bared wounds with unmoved air, <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> (Though tell-tale lashes still are wet), <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> And smoke his Woodbine cigarette.

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<span style="color: #1e251e; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 170%; text-align: center;">Women at home:



<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 140%; text-align: left;">With their husbands, fathers, fiancees, brothers, sons, and friends off to war, women also wrote heartfelt poems about the absence of the ones they miss. Most women kept an optimistic attitude, keeping the bright idea that their men would return safely home after the war. Hearing the news that the man they loved had died could be shocking and devastating, though. Many poems were inspired by longing for men they missed, or the devastation of terrible news they had received.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 140%; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">The following poem is by Katharine Tynan and was written about the death of a young man a girl loved. <span style="color: #800000; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 120%;">A GIRL'S SONG <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 110%;">The Meuse and Marne have little waves; The slender poplars o'er them lean. One day they will forget the graves That give the grass its living green. <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 110%;"> Some brown French girl the rose will wear That springs above his comely head; Will twine it in her russet hair, Nor wonder why it is so red. <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 110%;"> His blood is in the rose's veins, His hair is in the yellow corn. My grief is in the weeping rains And in the keening wind forlorn. <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 110%;"> Flow softly, softly, Marne and Meuse; Tread lightly, all ye browsing sheep; Fall tenderly, O silver dews, For here my dear Love lies asleep. <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 110%;"> The earth is on his sealèd eyes, The beauty marred that was my pride; Would I were lying where he lies, And sleeping sweetly by his side! <span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 110%;"> The Spring will come by Meuse and Marne, The birds be blithesome in the tree. I heap the stones to make his cairn Where many sleep as sound as he. <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Citations: <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">http://beck.library.emory.edu/greatwar/poetry/view.php?id=ktflower09  <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/biogs99.htm  <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">http://oldpoetry.com/oauthor/show/Eva_Dobell  <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/womenww1_six.htm  <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">http://womenwriters.library.emory.edu/worldwarI/  <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/education/tutorials/intro/women  <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">http://beck.library.emory.edu/greatwar/postcard-images/doublesize/come_home_poem.jpg