Base Details

goin'_to_the_PS

IF I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You’d see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel, 5
Reading the Roll of Honour. ‘Poor young chap,’
I’d say—‘I used to know his father well;
Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.’
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed.

I read this poem today, and i think this is my favourite peom i have ever read, simple yet amazingly brilliant. Any other opinions on it

Tristram

Thats Sassoon right?

Like most of his war-poetry it has an edge that seems to appeal to a lot of readers.If u like that I prolly know sum others ud like.Will have to go looking on the auld bookshelf first tho.

goin'_to_the_PS

thanks,

Tristram

K, Wilfred Owens is another famous British war poet.Check out his "Anthem for a doomed youth". Stark reality of war without Sassoon's 'humour'.Owen has some other interesting poems.

http://home.tiscali.be/ericlaermans/cultural/owen/anthem-for-doomed.html

Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier" is another reasonably famous WWI poem.

Also for a World War II poet u shud try get ur hands on Edith Sitwell's "Still Falls the Rain".Great poem imo.

There are quite a few anthologies of war poetry knocking around but tbh for every gem ul hav to sift thru a lot of crap.

What other kinds of poetry u in2?

John

Does anyone know any good World War I poetry anthologies? Or even a good Sassoon one. I remember reading that poem from junior cert, that and Midterm Break by Heaney are permanently embedded in me!

Tristram

dang i got a loan of a good Sassoon anthology a while back, cant rememebr what it was called.Had bn newly published in last few years.Had pretty much everything he ever wrote.

/me scratches head

goin'_to_the_PS

i'm fond of Owen as well, heres my favourite one of his, WW1 i think

http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html

Tristram

Yup thats a good one alrite.

It is good and proper/right to die for your country.Think we wud hav copped on at this stage.

goin'_to_the_PS

i read on another site that the title "base details" is pun, because the word base can mean dishonourable

Skip

and what's confusing about that? I read it in that way right away.

Dathai

I thought that poem sucked.I was supposed to study that or Dulce Et Decorum Est for my Junior Cert , and tbh, I picked DEDE for the sheer fact that it pwns Base Details due to the fact that its alot more meaningful than Base Details, Sassoon just gives opinion and why someone would write so little on a subject and a topic in which is so broad and harsh.He should have just scrapped it imo, or sent it to letters to the editor....