We thought we’d do something a little different this week given that it’s Remembrance Day this Friday. We’ll post a war poem and a letter that we especially like. But first, this:
John McCrae
Most Canadians know McCrae’s great war poem but not much else. Here is a picture of him:
That’s a bright face.
McCrae was born in 1872 in Guelph. He attended the University of Toronto for his undergraduate and medical degrees and was the Gold Medalist of his medical class. He worked at a number of hospitals including Toronto General Hospital, Johns Hopkins Hospital, McGill University, the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Infectious Diseases, Montreal General Hospital, and the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. He served in the Boer War and then re-enlisted as World War I started.
He wrote In Flanders’ Fields after Ypres in Belgium in 1915.
One of the reasons we write is to try to understand our emotions and feelings about significant events in our lives. This is particularly true of poetry. Interested readers are referred to Geri Chavis’s book Poetry and Story Therapy: The Healing Power of Creative Expression for on this cathartic power of expression. No doubt, McCrae was using his poetry to try to make sense of the horror he was experiencing.
McCrae died of pneumonia in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France in 1918, towards the end of the war.
Wilfred Owen
Among English language war poets, Owen is generally regarded as one of the best. He was commissioned, served in France in World War I, and wrote most of his poems over a short period from August 1917 to September 1918. He was killed in action in November 1918 at aged 25, one week before the Armistice.
Anthem for Doomed Youth
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
— Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
Guy Môque
Guy Môque was a member of the communist resistance in France during the occupation of the Nazis. He was arrested by French Vichy police and ended up at the prison in Chateaubriand. In 1941, he was part of a group of 50 prisoners who were executed because of the assassination of a Nazi officer. He penned the following letter to his family shortly before his execution. It’s a letter that all French children still read in school.
My darling Mummy, my adored brother, my much loved Daddy,
I am going to die! What I ask of you, especially you Mummy, is to be brave. I am, and I want to be, as brave as all those who have gone before me. Of course, I would have preferred to live. But what I wish with all my heart is that my death serves a purpose. I didn’t have time to embrace Jean. I embraced my two brothers Roger and Rino. As for my real brother, I cannot embrace him, alas! I hope all my clothes will be sent back to you. They might be of use to Serge, I trust he will be proud to wear them one day. To you, my Daddy to whom I have given many worries, as well as to my Mummy, I say goodbye for the last time. Know that I did my best to follow the path that you laid out for me. A last adieu to all my friends, to my brother whom I love very much. May he study hard to become a man later on. Seventeen and a half years, my life has been short, I have no regrets, if only that of leaving you all. I am going to die with Tintin, Michels. Mummy, what I ask you, what I want you to promise me, is to be brave and to overcome your sorrow. I cannot put any more. I am leaving you all, Mummy, Serge, Daddy, I embrace you with all my child’s heart. Be brave!
Your Guy who loves you.