I've just finished reading a wonderful book of letters written during WWII, A Vicarage in the Blitz, by Molly Rich. I'll be posting about it next week but it's made me want to read more books set in WWII. So, to combine those two themes, I've picked up my trusty anthology of women's poetry from both World Wars, The Virago Book of Women's War Poetry and Verse, edited by Catherine Reilly. This is an omnibus consisting of Scars Upon My Heart (WWI) & Chaos of the Night (WWII). This poem combines Mabel Esther Allan & the Blitz as it was written after Allan witnessed the bombing of Wallasey in Cheshire in 1941.
I saw a broken town beside the grey March sea,
Spray flung in the air and no larks singing,
And houses lurching, twisted, where the chestnut trees
Stand ripped and stark; the fierce wind bringing
The choking dust in clouds along deserted streets,
Shaking the gaping rooms, the jagged, raw-white stone.
Seeking for what in this quiet, stricken town? It beats
About each fallen wall, each beam, leaving no livid, aching place alone.
As a young teen I read Black Forrest Summer and just loved that book. Will look into reading the above book.
ReplyDeleteChristy
I haven't read any of MEA's childrens books but I've read a couple of her adult mysteries which I really enjoyed. She was certainly prolific.
DeleteThat's very moving, isn't it? I'm reading about WWII and the Women's Institutes, and it's still hard to imagine what 'ordinary' people went through. (P.S. I have Jane Austen and Food on my reading table, too!)
ReplyDeleteI bought JA & Food for my Kindle after reading that it had just been released as an ebook. It's very good, I'm about halfway through. I think I'll be reading a lot about the wars this year so the poetry will probably feature in Sunday Poetry quite a bit.
DeleteThere really is something fascinating about the two big wars I and II. The poem is quite sad especially the line about "no lark singing",
ReplyDeleteYes, it's like the "no birds sang" in Keats's La Belle Dame Sans Merci. It gives an uncanny feeling to the atmosphere of the poem.
DeleteI'm not that keen on MEA. As someone said, she certainly was prolific! She's also keenly collected. For more information, see here.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link. I'm not a big fan of school stories so I'll probably just stick to her more adult novels. I do like her sense of place though.
DeleteI managed to get hold of Chaos of the Night after you mentioned it before -- really an excellent collection and a great recommendation, thank you.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you could get hold of the book. There's so little women's poetry of the wars compared to the men that I think it's important to be able to keep it available.
DeleteI do like a good book of letters. Look forward to your review of A Vicarage in the Blitz. I'm intrigued.
ReplyDeleteMy review will be up tomorrow if I settle down to writing it!
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