Poetry from a trench

Died young, were idealistic, passionate, but died in the battlefields of Europe, including mud, hunger, rats and piojos.Vivieron the trenches of World War I to contarlo.Compusieron poems in describing the horror of a conflict that claimed nine million lives. The so-called Great War, Brian Gardner published in 1964 in the UK an anthology of poems written soldiers during the conflict,the Line Up todeath. Thewarpoets 1914-1918 . The editorial Linteo chose 21 of the 100 original poets and gave birth I have an appointment with death. War poetry, poetry of the dead.

"My grandfather had this anthology was a book that always fascinated me," said Ben Clark by phone, one of the two responsible for translating and editing the book. Clark (Ibiza, 1984), which is also a poet, has projected that for years with his friend Borja Aguiló publish the work in Castilian. His criterion for this bilingual edition was chosen to "those who died in combat", a requirement fulfilled by all except two who died of pneumonia and sepsis caused by a mosquito bite. In this last poet, Rupert Brooke, "recited his poems in the trenches, was very popular," says Clark. In Spain, the most significant example of a poet who composed verses soldier in the Civil War was Miguel Hernandez, who died in 1942 of typhus and tuberculosis in a prison in Alicante.

Heavy verses I have a rendezvous with death-title taken from the beginning of a poem by Alan Seeger, were rescued from the dead, "were among the clothes, writing in notebooks or on loose sheets. Some gave them time to send them to their homes, "adds Clark, for whom the most significant of those bards was Wilfred Owen, who had already published three poems and short play which was not known until years after his death. Owen was killed a week the end of the conflict, he was 25. A quote of his opens the anthology: Mainly I am concerned about the Poetry / I deal with the War and the War Lapena. / Poetry is worth it.

I have an appointment with death is poetry that touches the deceased, but not all the compositions have the same tone. The first lines of the war were patriotic and passionate, filled with idealism. Its authors are young people who ignore the slaughterhouse to which they are addressed, with little training or military training. As the race progresses the words become dark, tinged with disappointment and disillusionment. In this change was decisive battle of the Somme, a butcher shop in northern France that killed only the first day, July 1, 1916, almost 20,000 British. One of them was Leslie Coulson, Fromanoutpost and his book sold 10,000 copies otherpoems one years after his death. Your Sommefinaliza poemaDesde the way: In my soul I feel strange music grow, / vast edges of a tragedy too deep /-too deeply / to be pronounced by my poor lips.

The editors stress that the reader will not find "elegant poetry written by English lords in mansions," but "weathered voices in horror." Some charged the poets who sang the greatness of the war while remaining comfortably in place casas.Así Recruitment, EA Mackintosh, who died at 24, Go, and help to swell to swell the list / the names of the dead. / Id to help complete a column / the damn journalists.

However, there is an obstacle course to see in these verses the madness of war: the translation. The task of moving the original poems in this book "frustrating" as the authors acknowledge, and musicality with which they were composed (Loss and failure, pain and death) is lost, despite the bilingual temper it (the loss and failure, pain and death).

As for the poets, some had "some literature," as Thomas Edward Welsh, and others were just beginners who published more than his poems of war, as Robert Palmer. The youngsters ended their lives at age 20, the oldest was 45.Además of English in the anthology is Irish, one Canadian and one American.

With the war as long as landscape, I have an appointment ... poemaspremonitorios is chilling, like the William Noel Hodgson wrote on July 1, 1916, two days before he fell in battle and just like this: For all the pleasures you'll miss, / Help me, Lord, help me to die.

There are also those who have daily miseries as lice Hunting, English Isaac Rosenberg, who died 28 years for a shirt : infested with parasites / threw the soldier in his throat / Oaths / What to frighten a god, but not the lice.

Invoke God a few verses, others to country and many contain references to birds and nature, paradise lost and missed, there are warmongers, they are of brotherhood with the enemy: When there is peace, then we see again / with new eyes, the true form of the other and his greatness.

Finally, latent memories of the fallen in battle, as dead inthe forward by John McCrae. All these words were mental efforts to shake off the fear of death. Clark and Aguiló believe one of the great moments in the book is The Watcher, Owen, describing how he was the great trench warfare: The little air remained stank old, and acid / with smoke shells and the smell of / men who had lived there for years and left their curse / in that place / If not their corpses ...