A lesson to learn
Alison Chisholm explores a poem whose theme of the countless unnamed fighters who lost their lives in conflict makes a plea for change
War, in all its horrors and grief, bravery and cowardice, camaraderie and fear, is one of the themes poets return to over and over. Perhaps the reason for this is summarised in the refrain that runs through The Unknown Soldiers – the fact that the lesson is never learned.
This poem is by Alan Brett of Liphook, Hampshire, a poet who was aware of war from a very young age, as he explains: ‘I was born in the army garrison at Aldershot, Hampshire, and lived through the siege of Malta when my father was posted there. I watched the bombing, death and destruction with childish fascination, not traumatised though it had been filed away in my subconscious’. Recent stressful circumstances stirred up the memories.
The anti-war theme has recurred in Alan’s work and interests. He wrote a number of poems against the Vietnam war that were published in the University Press and national newspapers. He has also been involved with CND, Greenpeace, Amnesty International, and the anti-apartheid movement.
The anti-war stance in this poem focuses on two specific conflicts and then looks to the other battles that have been waged, and that will be waged. The sections about the wars, indicated by the years of fighting, are written in quatrain stanzas, while the final section is written in a single block of eight lines, suggesting a hint of pressure pushing the world forward towards the ideal of the time when The lesson WILL be learned.
Appropriately, given the title of the poem, none of the soldiers have been named, but while the identity of each man is not recorded, the fact that he will be remembered is. The seventh line of the poem echoes the remembrance promise We will remember them from Laurence Binyon’s For the Fallen. So one man is Everyman, and every loss causes the same pain, whichever side the soldier was fighting for.
In the context of the two conflicts, the use of masculine pronouns fits in with the fact that women were not in the front line of combat, although it might be interesting to render the last section gender neutral in the second half where it looks into the future. Simply changing Mankind to something like People or Our thinking would accomplish this.
The poem relies on ballad stanza for its structure, and Alan has an interesting take on the form. Rhythmically, it reads as a ballad. On a metrical level, it doesn’t have the rigid pattern we recognise as ballad stanza, four iambic feet without rhyme in the first and third lines of
a quatrain, and three iambic feet with rhyme in the second and fourth lines. While that is the basic metre thrumming through the poem, there are many variants that break the strict pattern, even while the feel of it underpins the writing.
The effectiveness of the strong rhythm is augmented by a suitably military style of language. Look at the first stanza of the poem. Most of the words are monosyllabic, with just three extending to two syllables each. So there’s a briskness to the wording, coupled with a no-nonsense, soldierly approach. The words are plain, their message direct.
Only in the last section, where the direct description of the situation becomes more meandering and speculative, do we find a subtle change of tone to make the language less stark, and to revel in the words for their own sound as well as the meaning. So we move from the direct image of He too was blown to pieces to the slightly less ‘in-your-face’ Dead warriors just the same.
With the ballad stanza’s rhyming and irregular returns to the refrain, there could have been an issue with the need to find five rhymes for learned that fit not just the required sound but also the meaning the poet is communicating. This has been achieved with rhymes that seem natural and unforced, burned, earned, spurned, yearned and turned. It’s interesting that both spurned and yearned have a slightly dated air to them, but both work perfectly in the context.
In a poem that is structured in traditional rhyme, you can often find elements of slant rhyme that add to the effect of the full rhyming sounds. Here, alliteration has been used most effectively. From the start, we have fight / futile, play / part, body burned, dignity / death / duty and so on. There is also good use of repetition with left to fight and left behind, the He, too, in the fourth stanza, and man of tender years and man of tender heart in the first, as well as the nearrepeated lines that precede the refrain, with He’ll proudly be remembered, He’ll also be remembered, and others.
Revision is aided if poets belong to a helpful writers’ group that can offer ideas and guidance. Unless there’s one in your area, it’s difficult to link up with other poets for mutual advice and support. So you have to be extravigilant, watching out for any hiccups that will prevent your poem from showing itself in the best light.
If Alan is continuing to work on The Unknown Soldiers, it might be a good idea to have another look at one or two lines where the reading or grammatical context is a little awkward. The Just as young he also was at the start of the third stanza, the opening line of the fifth stanza and the rather clichéd So he followed suit that comes after, and the Will one day, and dare we hope that doesn’t quite fit into the last stanza, could all be adjusted and polished with a touch more revision.
These details are important, but the essential message is in place, communicated with clarity, moving logically through the three phases of the poem, and leaving its impact on the reader. The lesson has been taught so many, many times. Now all we have to do is learn it.