Wilfrid Gibson

The next poet was very popular in his time (1910s). All the other poets in the group found him very amicable and were very fond of him. He had previously written rather like Tennyson, but then decided to branch out into more vernacular poetry.

Apparently the poem 'The Golden Room' depicts the group together of an evening, which I think would be a lovely poem to look at, but alas I cannot find a free version online. Do please look into it if you are interested, however, (and tell me if you can find a free version!).

One poem which exemplifies the colloquial style is 'Nightmare', which is beautifully concise (as are most of his poems, as far as I can see) , so I would recommend that one as well.

Today, however, we are looking at

Hit

Out of the sparkling sea
I drew my tingling body clear, and lay
On a low ledge the livelong summer day,
Basking, and watching lazily
White sails in Falmouth Bay.

My body seemed to burn
Salt in the sun that drenched it through and through,
Till every particle glowed clean and new
And slowly seemed to turn
To lucent amber in a world of blue . . .

I felt a sudden wrench—
A trickle of warm blood—
And found that I was sprawling in the mud
Among the dead men in the trench.

This poem encapsulates so much of the trauma of war. From the beginning denial and wish to be in a better place, to the final realisation of war which always haunts soldiers, Gibson has managed to write a poem that captures the internal conflict of the individual soldier rather than the outward conflict of the war.

Without the title's suggestion of battle, the poem starts as any other nature poem would, praising the relaxation which is found is natural surroundings, perhaps on a holiday, ironically a much more peaceful type of travel than that of war campaigns.

Apparently, when a person is shot, the first thing they feel is nothing, especially if you do not know that you have been shot. The reactions that we see on TV and film are in fact learnt reactions, from watching people react in such a way. Thus, the narrator talks of a 'tingling' first, and then a 'burning', although these both at first appear to be but the effects of a hot sun on the beach.

The third stanza disrupts the previous two. The ellipsis has led the reader to imagine the narrator as dreaming, perhaps, relaxing as he wishes. But then the 'sudden wrench' changes the perspective, and the title of the poem is remembered, almost with a pang of guilt rom the reader, who has been drawn in by an innocent and happy vision, when they were warned of the dangerous setting before. Even the five-line structure is changed, with four lines suggesting that the end for the narrator has come too soon. The different chiastic rhyme mimics how he is surrounded by 'the dead men', whom he is now to join.

It seems that Gibson is rather good at jolting the reader's attention away from an assumption and into a harsh reality, which I think is one of my favourite things about a poem, or any story.

Robert Frost

I hope you feel lucky that you are being saved the pain of my puns as I refrain from them while I go through the Dymock poets. They wouldn't seem apt somehow.

Robert Frost was an American, who moved to England for a long stay at the age of 38 in 1912. He had not been published for long and so new opportunities arose across the sea. Edward Thomas, who will be the final poet I study in the group, became one of his closest friends, with poems written for him, especially after his traumatic death. Before that, though, he stayed with Abercrombie at one point, when he wrote the following poem:

The Sound of Trees

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I wonder about the trees.

Why do we wish to bear

Forever the noise of these

More than another noise

So close to our dwelling place?

We suffer them by the day

Till we lose all measure of pace,

And fixity in our joys,

And acquire a listening air.

They are that that talks of going

But never gets away;

And that talks no less for knowing,

As it grows wiser and older,

That now it means to stay.

My feet tug at the floor

And my head sways to my shoulder

Sometimes when I watch trees sway,

From the window or the door.

I shall set forth for somewhere,

I shall make the reckless choice

Some day when they are in voice

And tossing so as to scare

The white clouds over them on.

I shall have less to say,

But I shall be gone.

To me, it seems, Frost's travelling nature impresses upon this poem. He perhaps recognises in the trees the wish to get 'going', but the inertia causing him to 'never [get] away'. This is just one of the things that the trees make him 'wonder'; what would it be like to never move? Yes, you might grow 'wiser', but would you be happier for it? Perhaps there is a suggestion that if you fall too deeply in love with one place, or one part of nature, you might never want to leave, which is why he suddenly breaks from the reverie into, 'I shall set forth for somewhere'.
Having taken this approach to the poem, the final line now has a different meaning to when I first read it. Then, I took it as an acknowledgement of human mortality, particularly short in comparison to that of trees, or nature itself. Now I see it more as the promise that he shall not become like a tree entirely, as although he will 'have less to say', like the trees, he will not remain where he perhaps is happy, but will move on again, 'gone' to even better things. For if you never try other places, you will never know where you belong, nor can you be truly grateful for something you have not had the chance to miss.

John Drinkwater

I apologise for my long absence; I had A Level exams which are now completed and so I can focus on what I love most again. One a day from now on until I catch up! I had forgotten I was doing the Dymock poets, and was about to study a Catullus poem or two, but that will have to wait!

So John Drinkwater. He joined the poets when Abercrombie wrote a good review of his poems. He also wrote plays during the period. He became close friends with Robert Brooke, but when he died three years after in 1915, the whole group were saddened, and began to fall apart, as others died too.

The poem I have chosen today seems to fit the nature bill, and is also very apt for today (at least where I live) as summer has not yet arrived, according to the rain clouds.

Late Summer

Though summer long delayeth
 Her blue and golden boon,
Yet now at length she stayeth
 Her wings above the noon;
She sets the waters dreaming
 To murmurous leafy tones,
The weeded waters gleaming
 Above the stepping-stones.

Where fern and ivied willow
 Lean o'er the seaward brook,
I read a volume mellow—
 A poet's fairy-book;
The seaward brook is narrow,
 The hazel spans its pride,
And like a painted arrow
 The king-bird keeps the tide.

This poem casts up images of grey days that for a few lovely moments are dispersed with a gleam of sunshine, lifting the spirits of all who witness. Thus, the poet has personified both 'summer' and the nature affected by it; the waters are 'dreaming', which is an interesting, languid image, perhaps evoking the sleepy feeling of relaxing in the sunshine. The idea that the sun affects the sound of the water is also intriguing. Drinkwater might be implying that our perspective of the world is changed by the weather, for one might listen to the water in a more peaceful vein if relaxed by the sun. Without this, it might sound cold and uninviting, I suppose.

There is also the image of nature mixing. The willow is 'ivied', inventing a perfect participle to make the tree appear matched with the ivy, perhaps as a partner. The adjective 'seaward' denotes the fact that the stream which he sits by leads on to greater things, although it may only be 'narrow' now. This latter adjective is the juxtaposed with the verb 'spans' on the next line, again suggesting summer lets us stretch outside our natural habitats.

The final couplet are a little more of a mystery to me. I am assuming that my literal reading of a bird keeping a tide is not what is intended/ possible, and yet I do not know what the metaphor could imply. I have found that kingbirds are insect- eating birds, and so as it hunts it must appear as an 'arrow'. Perhaps Drinkwater wanted to give the only animal in the poem a little more power over the flora, and so personified it to be in charge of its hunting ground.

Overall, this is an evocative poem, recalling sweet summer days, which we all await through the seasons. The lilting rhythm of the poem (7 syllables, 6 syllables) adds to the relaxed tone, mimicking the timelessness that summer brings.

Rupert Brooke

From my research, it seems that Rupert Brooke was only a brief part of the Dymock group. He was asked to write some war poems for Gibson and Abercrombie to publish, and he perhaps might not have verntured into this type of poem without their influence. Nevertheless, they loved his work and posted it to subscribers of the Dymock movement, and I think any contributor is worth a looksee.

This poet seems to have a lovely range of long and short poems. The long ones I will recommend as an extra read, as they are too jam-packed for me to do them justice, so I shall just say read Dining Room Tea at least.

Today, as it si the poem submitted to the movement, we shall have:

The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:
   That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
   In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
   Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
   Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
   A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
      Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
   And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
      In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

I apologise first of all if my analysis is a little disjointed: I am partially watching Eurovision!

The identity constructed in this passage is a selfless, accepting and self-sacrificing one. The first line acknowledges the possibility of death, and then the selfless, modest attitude comes across through the adverb 'only' and the singular 'this', asking very little of the audience, as 'think' is a stative, not dynamic, verb.

I am taking the 'foreign...England' to be a patriotic message that each grave of an English soldier belongs to England at heart, thus the 'richer dust', as the wealth of a life has been sacrificed into ashes. It is interesting to see that he has personified England as a female. This can be linked to the motherhood identity of motherlands, which bear and rear the inhabitants of the country. It therefore comes as a source of comfort to one who faces death. I am sure that Freud would find some link with the Oedipus complex, especially with the seemingly telepathic link conveyed through the 'thoughts' being given back. This also creates an overarching English cognitive system, again very patriotic.

It is interesting that this poem praises England, even though the English have sent the narrator to die. Perhaps England here is separate from its government, which explains the natural lexis ('day', 'flowers', 'rivers'). Many war poets criticised government and war-supporters specifically, but there is no hint of that here, merely the selfless yet patriotic praise. The forward-looking and hopeful note of 'heaven' concludes, ensuring the cancelling out of the negative atmosphere of death, as has been overcome by the positive lexis of England.

That's all from me this week. Do enjoy Eurovision if you watch as well!

Dymock poets...I don't know how to say that either

...that's because it is a place name. The poets came from the area around the town of Dymock, before WW1. I don't know where I first heard about this group; all I can tell you is that I wrote down to study them, so I am!

These are the six poets:

Lascelles Abercrombie
Rupert Brooke
John Drinkwater
Robert Frost
Wilfrid Gibson
Edward Thomas

Each week for the next six weeks, I shall study these individuals and the role they had to play in the group. I know that I have already covered Frost (I think!) but I shall look closer at his involvement in the Dymock club.

So, let's begin at the top, with Lascelles Abercrombie. In actual fact, he started the group and so is the best place to begin. He was interested in the upcoming realism in contemporary poetry, and also fascinated by the countryside.

I don't think I will need to describe realism; this poem gives you all you need in itself.

The Box

Once upon a time, in the land of Hush-A-Bye,
Around about the wondrous days of yore,
They came across a kind of box
Bound up with chains and locked with locks
And labeled 'Kindly do not touch; it's war.'
A decree was issued round about, and all with a flourish and a shout
And a gaily colored mascot tripping lightly on before.
Don't fiddle with this deadly box, or break the chains, or pick the locks.
And please don't ever play about with war.
The children understood. Children happen to be good
And they were just as good around the time of yore.
They didn't try to pick the locks or break into that deadly box.
They never tried to play about with war.
Mommies didn't either; sisters, aunts, grannies neither
'Cause they were quiet, and sweet, and pretty
In those wondrous days of yore.
Well, very much the same as now,
And not the ones to blame somehow
For opening up that deadly box of war.
But someone did. Someone battered in the lid
And spilled the insides out across the floor.
A kind of bouncy, bumpy ball made up of guns and flags
And all the tears, and horror, and death that comes with war.
It bounced right out and went bashing all about,
Bumping into everything in store. And what was sad and most unfair
Was that it didn't really seem to care
Much who it bumped, or why, or what, or for.
It bumped the children mainly. And I'll tell you this quite plainly,
It bumps them every day and more, and more,
And leaves them dead, and burned, and dying
Thousands of them sick and crying.
'Cause when it bumps, it's really very sore.
Now there's a way to stop the ball. It isn't difficult at all.
All it takes is wisdom, and I'm absolutely sure
That we can get it back into the box, and bind the chains, and lock the locks.
But no one seems to want to save the children anymore.
Well, that's the way it all appears, 'cause it's been bouncing round
for years and years
In spite of all the wisdom wizzed since those wondrous days of yore
And the time they came across the box,
Bound up with chains and locked with locks,
And labeled 'Kindly do not touch; it's war.'

To me, the irregular rhyme (that when it occurs is rather immediate) gives a sing-song, child-like rhythm to the poem. This frames the idea that 'war' is never the fault of children, but is always affecting them, possibly the most, as fathers are lost (I am sticking to the poem's ideology, in which women do not fight), and the cost of the damage to the country is for the younger generations to repay and rebuild.

The metaphor is an interesting one, because it connoted to me the story of Pandora's box. But here, the image is specifically altered to be applied to men, not women - females have been blamed fro so many disasters, like the Fall of man, but here is one man who will blame his own sex for the tragedy of war.

This is not to say that I agree with his stereotyping of women. He lists them in their supposed functions, as 'mommies', 'sisters, aunties, grannies', all relating women to family roles. Then comes the infuriating 'cause they were quiet and sweet and pretty'. Thank you for claiming that women have no voice; poets like you made their voices louder. 'To be seen and not heard' come to mind at all? Even here the male gaze is being forced upon women. Did he think there would be gratitude because women were not being accused of starting wars?

The tone of realism begins to fade in the poem when the narrator thinks that 'we can get it back into the box', but then again he has recognised that we need 'wisdom' to do this, and as long as he thought wisdom would never be attained then the poem is still realist, especially as he ends on the reminder that is has been opened, even by wise people. So in the end, we can all hope for peace, but there will always be others who want war, and so we will always have war. Realism seems to be a euphemism for pessimism these days, unfortunately.