As If I Was There

Trenches on the 11th Cheshire Regiment

I attended a poetry reading which was held in commemoration of the 100 year anniversary of the end of World War I. I have never been to a poetry reading before, which is shameful because I do enjoy it. I usually sit towards the front of the room, but this time I sat in the back. Why? Perhaps because World War I was such a terrible war and I subconsciously wanted to distance myself from the people who would be reading about it.

Before entering the auditorium, we were invited to select a single poem from a stack just outside the door. I grabbed one without looking at it, and took my back-row seat. It wasn’t long before a good friend of mine, Dr. Westover, a professor at BYU, came into the room and sat by me. We chatted for a few moments, and then the lights dimmed. A man stood up to the microphone and welcomed everyone. I was slightly taken aback when he said that the audience would be invited to come up to read the poems they had picked from the stack. I don’t know… I guess I assumed that someone had been assigned to read a list of poems?

As soon as the mic was open, Dr. Westover made his way to the front. This was unsurprising to me, as one of his passions is poetry and the written word. He had selected “Dulce et decorum est.” I recognized this poem from high school, and words like, “blood-shod,” “stumbling,” “drowning,” and “writhing” came back to me. I imagined the unlucky soldiers gasping for breath and finally giving up. I could almost see “the blood/Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs” (21-22) and could feel the “incurable sores on innocent tongues” (24). Dr. Westover’s voice continued to send me to this place that I have never been and hope to never be.

I don’t think often about war, at least not in more than “once upon a time” terms. But it is real. And it mangles bodies and rips apart families. War is horrible, but sometimes it is necessary. When done with the correct end in mind, a country can experience great nationalism and can be brought together more closely. I believe that remembering our country and the values we enjoy would be eye-opening for every American, especially as we remember those who will never open their eyes again.


Image Credit: Wikipedia public domain "Trenches on the 11th Cheshire Regiment at Ovillers-la Boiselle, on the Somme, July 1916.