Poets of World War II

edited by harvey shapiro

WITTER BYNNER (1881-1968)

Defeat

EZRA POUND (1885-1972)

from Canto LXXXIII

H. D. (1886-1961)

R.A.F.

ROBINSON JEFFERS (1887-1962)

Pearl Harbor

The Bloody Sire

MARIANNE MOORE (1887-1972)

"Keeping Their World Large"

CONRAD AIKEN (1889-1973)

Three Star Final

CHARLES REZNIKOFF (1894-1976)

from By the Well of Living and Seeing

VLADIMIR NABOKOV (1899-1977)

"When he was small, when he would fall"

ALLEN TATE (1899-1979)

Ode to Our Young Pro-consuls of the Air

YVOR WINTERS (1900-1968)

To a Military Rifle

Moonlight Alert

Night of Battle

EVE TRIEM (1902-1992)

The Witness

RICHARD EBERHART (b. 1904)

The Fury of Aerial Bombardment

A Ceremony by the Sea

from Aesthetics After War: Instruments

LOUIS ZUKOFSKY (1904-1978)

from A Song for the Year's End

STANLEY KUNITZ (b. 1905)

Reflection by a Mailbox

Careless Love

W.H. AUDEN (1907-1973)

September 1, 1939

LINCOLN KIRSTEIN (1907-1996)

Snatch

Patton

Rank

P.O.E.

GEORGE OPPEN (1908-1984)

Survival: Infantry

Of Being Numerous

CHARLES E. BUTLER (1909-1981)

Rifle Range: Louisiana

ROBERT FITZGERALD (1910-1985)

Pacific

Amphibians

WINFIELD TOWNLEY SCOTT (1910-1968)

Three American Women and a German Bayonet

BEN BELITT (b. 1911)

The Spool

ALFRED HAYES (1911-1985)

The City of Beggars

HYAM PLUTZIK (1911-1962)

The Airman Who Flew Over Shakespeare's England

WILLIAM EVERSON (1912-1994)

The Raid

WOODY GUTHRIE (1912-1967)

The Blinding of Isaac Woodard

MAY SARTON (1912-1995)

Navigator

JOHN FREDERICK NIMS (1913-1999)

Shot Down at Night

KARL SHAPIRO (1913-2000)

Scyros

Troop Train

Full Moon: New Guinea

Lord, I Have Seen Too Much

Homecoming

JOHN BERRYMAN (1914-1972)

The Moon and the Night and the Men

RANDALL JARRELL (1914-1965)

Eighth Air Force

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

Transient Barracks

O My Name It Is Sam Hall

A Camp in the Prussian Forest

WELDON KEES (1914-1955)

June 1940

The City as Hero

WILLIAM STAFFORD (1914-1997)

At the Grave of My Brother: Bomber Pilot

Explaining the Big One

Some Remarks When Richard Hugo Came

Men

EDWARD R. WEISMILLER (b. 1915)

To the Woman in Bond Street Station

JOHN CIARDI (1916-1986)

Song

Elegy Just in Case

V-J Day

A Box Comes Home

Elegy for a Cove Full of Bones

THOMAS MCGRATH (1916-1990)

Homecoming

Remembering That Island

PETER VIERECK (b. 1916)

Kilroy

"Vale" from Carthage

Ripeness Is All

PETER BOWMAN (1917-1985)

from Beach Red

GWENDOLYN BROOKS (1917-2000)

Negro Hero

ROBERT LOWELL (1917-1977)

On the Eve of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception: 1942

The Bomber

Memories of West Street and Lepke

WILLIAM BRONK (1918-1999)

Soldiers in Death

Memorial

WILLIAM JAY SMITH (b. 1918)

Epithalamium in Olive Drab

Pidgin Pinch

Columbus Circle Swing

ROBERT DUNCAN (1919-1988)

A Spring Memorandum: Fort Knox

WILLIAM MEREDITH (b. 1919)

Navy Field

Love Letter from an Impossible Land

Simile

ANN DARR (b. 1920)

Flight as a Way of Life

HOWARD NEMEROV (1920-1991)

A Fable of the War

A Memory of the War

Night Operations, Coastal Command RAF

The War in the Air

IFF

HAYDEN CARRUTH (b. 1921)

On a Certain Engagement South of Seoul

JOHN PAUKER (1921-1991)

Jethro Somes' Apostrophe to His Former Comrades

RICHARD WILBUR (b. 1921)

Mined Country

First Snow in Alsace

Place Pigalle

JAMES DICKEY (1923-1997)

The Firebombing

ALAN DUGAN (b. 1923)

Memorial Service for the Invasion Beach

Where the Vacation in the Flesh Is Over

Portrait from the Infantry

Self-Exhortation on Military Themes

Stentor and Mourning

ANTHONY HECHT (b. 1923)

from Rites and Ceremonies: The Room

"More Light! More Light!"

Still Life

RICHARD HUGO (1923-1982)

Where We Crashed

Spinizzola: Quella Cantina Lý

Note from Capri to Richard Ryan on the Adriatic Floor

LOUIS SIMPSON (b. 1923)

Arm in Arm

Carentan O Carentan

Memories of a Lost War

Old Soldier

On the Ledge

A Bower of Roses

EDGAR BOWERS (1924-2000)

The Stoic: For Laura Von Courten

EDWARD FIELD (b. 1924)

World War II

JOHN HAINES (b. 1924)

Mothball Fleet: Benicia, California

HARVEY SHAPIRO (b. 1924)

Battle Report

War Stories

LUCIEN STRYK (b. 1924)

Sniper

KENNETH KOCH (1925-2002)

To Carelessness

To World War Two

SAMUEL MENASHE (b. 1925)

Beachhead

W. D. SNODGRASS (b. 1926)

Ten Days Leave

Returned to Frisco, 1946

JAMES TATE (b. 1943)

The Lost Pilot

Biographical Notes

Note on the Texts

Notes

Index of Titles and First Lines