AFTER READING CHAPTER 5
AFTER READING CHAPTER 9
AFTER READING THE NOVEL
"Almost ten million soldiers died in World War I. Those who died on the battlefields were buried in cemeteries throughout Belgium, France, and Germany. This poem pays tribute to those young men" (Glencoe Literature Library)
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Post Card by Guillaume Apollinaire(Sent to André Rouveyre, 20 August 1915)
I write to you beneath this tent While summer day becomes a shade And startling magnificent Flowers of the cannonade Stud the pale blue firmament And before existing fade The Dug-Out by Siegfried SassoonWhy do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen, cold, Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you, Deep-shadowed from the candle's guttering gold; And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder; Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head... You are too young to fall asleep for ever; And when you sleep you remind me of the dead. Vigil by Giuseppe UngarettiA whole night long
crouched close to one of our men butchered with his clenched mouth grinning at the full moon with the congestion of his hands thrust right into my silence I've written letters filled with love I have never been so coupled to life "War may seem an unlikely subject for poetry, but the form's tight construction and concise language can paint vivid pictures. Some of these poem, to paraphrase Siegfried Sassoon, may hurt your heart" (Glencoe Literature Library).
Battlefield by August StrammYielding clod lulls iron off to sleep
bloods clot the patches where they oozed rust crumble slashes slime sucking lusts around decay murder on murder blinks in childish eyes. |