As long as there have been poets, they have been writing war elegies. In this episode, Mark and Seamus discuss responses to the American Civil War (Walt Whitman), both world wars (W.B. Yeats, Wilfred Owen, Rudyard Kipling, Keith Douglas) and the conflict in Northern Ireland (Michael Longley) to explore the way these very different poems share an ancient legacy. Spanning 160 years and energised by competing ideas of art and war, these soldiers, carers and civilians are united by a need that Mark and Seamus suggest is at the root of poetry, to memorialise the dead in words.

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Poems discussed in this episode:

Walt Whitman, ‘Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night’

⁠https://⁠⁠w⁠⁠ww.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45478/vigil-strange-i-kept-on-the-field-one-night⁠

Wilfred Owen, ‘Futility’

⁠https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57283/futility-56d23aa2d4b57⁠

Keith Douglas, ‘Vergissmeinnicht’

⁠https://warpoets.org.uk/worldwar2/poem/vergissmeinnicht/⁠

W.B. Yeats, ‘An Irish Airman foresees his Death’

⁠https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57311/an-irish-airman-foresees-his-death⁠

Michael Longley, ‘The Ice-Cream Man’

⁠https://poetryarchive.org/poem/ice-cream-man/⁠

Rudyard Kipling, ‘Epitaphs of the War’

⁠https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57409/epitaphs-of-the-war⁠

Further reading in the LRB:

Ian Hamilton on Keith Douglas’s letters:

⁠http://lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n03/ian-hamilton/tough-guy⁠

Jonathan Bate on war poetry:

⁠http://lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n22/jonathan-bate/players-please⁠

Poems by Michael Longley published in the LRB:

⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/contributors/michael-longley⁠

Next episode: Family elegies by William Wordsworth, Denise Riley, Anne Carson and Robert Lowell.