News, Views,
New War Poetry on this Website

Thought for the month, November 2007

Every November we remember the awful loss of life in war
and say "Never again".
This cemetery is near Arras in northern France and dates from the First World War

(Right click to copy photograph. Photo David Roberts, March 1995.)

Thought for the month, October 2007

Poetry and Combat Stress

(Combat stress is also known as: post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, and shell shock.)

In the First World War, when soldiers broke down, unable to carry on or cope with life military leaders at first condemned the soldiers for "lack of courage". Many were executed. (See the poem The Execution of Cornelius Vane, by Herbert Read which appears in the Minds at War anthology.) But it soon became apparent that even the bravest of men, when subjected to shocks and horrors of war, could crack up and need special care to help them to readjust to life and to be able to cope again. (For many recovery was only partial. Some never recovered.) In Britain a specialist hospital was set up at Craiglockhart, Edinburgh - the Craiglockhart War Hospital. It was to this hospital that the greatest of British war poets, Wilfred Owen,  was sent in June 1917 for a period of four months. It was here that he began to write his best poems, continuing for just over a year till shortly before his death. (You can read more about his life on this website. See Wilfred Owen's Psychological Journey which is reproduced from Minds at War.) One of his poems, Mental Cases, describes the pitiful state of some soldiers he met in the hospital. This poem appears in both Minds at War and Out in the Dark.

Death, destruction, trauma was of an immensely greater order in the Second World War. Civilians suffered on a scale never before known to mankind. In Europe (most of Europe) and most of the rest of the world people turned against war and found peaceful co-existence a more satisfactory approach to life.

The Twentieth Century and into the Twenty-first century many unnecessary and terrible wars have continued. Civilians probably assume that soldiers who return home with no physical injuries or only minor injuries have returned home unharmed. This is often far from true. Sooner or late about half of all ex-servicemen and women will experience serious mental and emotional distress.

The ex-servicemen and their families all suffer. When things become desperate they often contact one of the organisations set up to help. In the UK the largest is Combat Stress which was established in 1919. Some 8000 service veterans  are registered with it.

27,000 service personnel took part in the Falklands war. 258 were killed. Twenty-five years on Combat Stress continues to care for 600 Falklands veterans.

Five years ago Combat Stress dealt with five hundred new cases. There has been a big increase in new cases since then and over a thousand new case are taken on a year now.

Many people who have experienced traumatic events, both in and out of war situations, have found that writing about their experiences helps them to come to terms with their experiences and often helps to release some of their torment. Some of them take to writing poetry, often to their own surprise.

You will find a number of poets on this website who have written about their experiences of war in this way. What value is this writing apart from the possible therapeutic effects for the writer? It seems to me that sharing the emotional burden somehow increases the sense of relief. For fellow sufferers it helps them to know that they are far from alone in their experiences. For those fortunate enough not to have endured traumatic experiences it should educate us to the nature of war when we seem too easily to downplay its importance. Wilfred Owen said, "All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true poet must be truthful."

So much of the power of Owen's poetry comes out the truth of his experience. The same power can be felt in many contemporary poems on this website. See, particularly, poems in the Falklands War pages, and new poems this month by Graham Cordwell.

I admire the courage of these writers and thank them for their willingness to share their thoughts and experiences with us.

Graham Cordwell would like us to draw attention to www.theabanddonedsoldier.com

Combat Stress can be visited at www.combatstress.org.uk

David Roberts.

Thought for the month, September 2007

"It isn't power that corrupts, but fear"  -  Aung San Su-Chi

This month saw the brutal crackdown by the Burmese government on  peaceful protesters. Thousands have been arrested and are believed to be being tortured. It is difficult to comprehend how people can commit such horrendous acts against fellow human beings. The leaders in Burma are clearly very frightened indeed of ordinary non-violent people

Thought for the month, August 2007

What has war done for the people of Iraq?

Poets on this website anticipated that t