All Quiet on the Western Front
Poetry Connections #1
Background: Some of the young men who fought and died in the trenches of World War I were poets. After
the war, the surviving writers in many nations sought to express the thoughts and feelings of soldiers like
themselves. As a group, they came to be known as “the war poets.”
“Battlefield” by August Stramm
Yielding clod lulls iron off to sleep
bloods clot the patches where they oozed
rusts crumble
fleshes slime
sucking lusts around decay.
Murder on murder blinks
in childish eyes.
“Postcard” by Guillaume Apollinaire
The shade of her who is very sweet is evoked here,
Indolent, and playing an air which is also doleful,
Nocturne or Lied in a minor key which makes one's soul
swoon,
In the shadow where her long fingers bring death to a phrase
On the piano which mons like a poor woman.
“Vigil” by Giuseppe Ungaretti
A whole night long
crouched close
to one of our men
butchered
with his clenched
mouth
grinning at the full moon
with the congestion
of his hands
thrust right
into my silence
I've written
letters filled with love
I have never been
so
coupled to life
“The Dug-out” by Siegfried Sassoon
Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen, cold,
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep-shadowed from the candle's guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head...
You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.
Responding to the Reading
1. What images do the first five lines of “Battlefield” contain? Who do the “childish eyes” belong to? How do
they respond to what they see and why?
2. What is the setting of “Postcard”? What startling sight does the speaker describe? What might the flowers
that “before existing fade” symbolize?
3. Describe what happens in “The Dug-out.” How is the style of this poem different from the other three?
4. Making Connections: What parallels can you find between the experiences of the soldiers described in the
four poems and those of Paul Bäumer in All Quiet on the Western Front?