Poems — A Reader’s Guide

Landscape and Elegy in the Dardanelles

The first section opens with 'From “W” Beach,' a poem that lingers on the natural beauty of the Aegean: 'The Isle of Imbros, set in turquoise blue' and 'the purple hills of Asia.' The pace is slow, almost painterly, as the speaker observes 'rolling battleships at anchor ride' and 'dipping gulls.' This calm is undercut by the presence of 'wooden crosses' and 'ugly shapes like spectres,' but the poem ends with a hopeful vision of renewal: 'So shall this transient havoc fade away / And the proud cape be beautiful again.' In 'A Prayer,' the voice becomes more intimate, asking 'Lord, keep him near to me' and describing 'stricken men' who 'watch the beckoning stars enshrine the parapet.' The language is direct, with a regular meter that conveys a sense of ritual. The section's overall effect is one of controlled grief, where the landscape absorbs and transforms the violence of war.

The Western Front: Urgency and Disruption

The second section shifts to the trenches of France, and the pace accelerates. In 'Reality,' the speaker describes 'the noise and measured beat / Of marching men' and 'bobbing cavalry,' but then dismisses these as 'dead mummers of forgotten fantasies.' The poem's rhythm becomes more irregular, mirroring the disorientation of memory. 'We Poets of the Proud Old Lineage' adopts a more defiant tone: 'Apart we labour, and alone we climb / The barren heights.' The line lengths are shorter, and the rhyme scheme tightens, creating a sense of urgency. The section includes 'The Turkish Trench Dog' and 'The Sentinel,' which use narrative detail and dialogue to break the lyrical flow. The change in pace is most evident in the contrast between the opening's measured description and the later poems' fragmented, almost breathless lines. This section captures the immediacy of combat and the struggle to find meaning amid chaos.

Civilian Life and Lyrical Return

The third section moves away from the battlefield to miscellaneous poems, and the pace slows again. 'Song' is a light, playful piece: 'Would I could commandeer the bees / To hum you droning symphonies.' The meter is regular, with a sing-song quality. 'The Shadow' returns to a more somber tone, set in a London street where 'the surge and clamour of a London street' contrasts with a vision of a poet dying. The poem's long lines and enjambment create a meditative pace. 'Everychild' is a whimsical journey through 'Pacific seas' and 'arctic foam,' with a childlike rhythm: 'We take you through Pacific seas / To islands strange and new.' The section ends with 'The French Mother to Her Unborn Child,' a poignant monologue that returns to the war's human cost. This section shows Dearmer's range, from light verse to elegy, and the varied pace reflects the poet's attempt to find a voice beyond the trenches.

Dearmer's collection rewards attention to its shifts in tempo and form. The three sections are not merely thematic but also rhythmic, moving from the slow, descriptive elegies of the Dardanelles to the urgent, fragmented poems of the Western Front and finally to the varied, often lyrical pieces of civilian life. Readers may find it useful to compare the opening and closing poems of each section to observe how the poet modulates his voice. The dedication to Christopher, killed at Suvla Bay, provides a key emotional anchor, but the poems themselves offer a more complex portrait of a poet grappling with loss and the limits of language.

I have shelved Dearmer’s collection for decades, and always I pause at that hush between the cannon-fire and the garden. That quiet kinship of memory finds its echo in Poems — Text and Context, which sits beside it, patient as a friend who knows a war-worn heart. They speak together, softly, of what remains.