Poetry, like any other aspect of literature, has always been about representing factual issues in society. Writers choose to address some of the political, social and economic issues members of a given community go through at a given time. This may be done humorously, or through a comic version, to make light otherwise weighty intense subjects like corruption or poverty. But regardless of the form the writer takes, there is no denying that the ultimate goal is to create awareness of predisposing issues. The approach is even more so when it comes to poets who have to address some of the most pressing issues that are vital to a country's state of affairs. During the world wars, poetry played a central role in enabling poets to bring to light the dark, horrific and dark truths of the war, by placing themselves in the situation itself, rather than writing from an observer's point of view, as this gave them more insight into the realities of the war.
As Jay Parini states, poets have a duty of pointing out things both right and wrong about any human condition in the present manifestation by existing in the time, and the situation themselves. It is this same school of thought that guides the poet Denise Levertov in his poem, "The Distance," which gives the personal encounters of the poet's experience fighting the Vietnam War. In the introduction stanza, the poet observes, "While we lie in the road to block traffic from the air-force base" (Levertov, 1983). From this introduction line to the rest of the poem, the poet manages to introduce the reader to a personal recollection of experiences in the war which the poet went through, and is now talking about. In the early days, during the wars, a lot of civilians, and military personnel used to fight in the wars, whose outcomes were always unpredictable. At the same time, the environment back home was such that there were no active lines of communications which could connect the fighters with their families. Hence, most of these fighters took to writing letters, informing their families of the conditions they were subjected to, and some of the horrors they used to go through. Not all of these letters would see the light of the day; that is, not all would be delivered to the families of the fighters. However, as these fighters kept writing letters, they discovered a new way of venting out, expressing the fears, and recounting their ordeals through the platform that writing these letters presented. In no time, these letters developed into poems which were personal recollections of the wars, the horrific scenes of the battle, death, blood, and bodies everywhere. This explains why most of these poems were written in first person pronoun. This is because they were merely the recollection of events more than they were general observations.
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However, not all poets chose to write from personal experiences, because not all of them fought in the war. For instance, female poets like Katherine Tynan did not have personal experiences of the battlefield in the sense that women were not allowed into the battle. Staying at home, these women observed the young men, dead, or wounded being brought back from the fields, and the state of the returned or dead fighters, they could only paint a picture of how gruesome the battlefield must have been. It is with this picture in mind that they wailed the frailty of life, and how perishable human life it is. Tynan, for instance, laments, "Smiles with the eyes of fatherhood, now heaven is by the young invaded, their laughter's in the house of God” (Tynan, 1915). In this poem, "Flower of Youth" the poet observes how the World War I have claimed the lives of young men who are supposed to be future leaders and fathers of the coming generations, and how they have died prematurely, along with their unfulfilled dreams. Even though such poets never had the opportunity to be on the battlefield, they were able to lament on the state of the society which continued to lose its vibrant young members almost daily. Another special category of poets during this period was the activists, or the human's rights activists, who believed they had been placed in such a moment for a special reason, which was to use their poetic ability and gifts to preach peace and reason. Day Lewis in his poem, "Where Are the War Poets?" believes that poets have to speak up against the social injustices, being the voice of the voiceless crying for justice, peace, and prosperity" (Day Lewis, 1973). That we who lived by honest dreams defend the bad against the worse." In this scenario, the poet believes that in as much as there may be fighters in the battlefield, poets also had the obligation of fighting the intellectual war, being the voice of reason upon which the war could be won.
In conclusion, it is essential to observe that no matter how involved a poet was in the war, they had the duty of being a voice. They could either be the voice crying out on behalf of the soldiers being slain, or they could stand up for the society mourning its loss, or act as the voice of activists more interested in finding amicable solutions to the crisis at hand, one which did not have to involve the loss of life. Regardless of a poet's capacity during the wars; however, there is no denying that they were tasked with the mandate of living in the present time, and being the voice in the war.
References
Day Lewis, C. (1973). Where are the war poets? Word Over All (London: Jonathan Cape, 1943) , 30 .
Levertov, D. (1983). Poems of Denise Levertov, 1960-1967 . New Directions Publishing.
Tynan, K. (1915). Flower of Youth: Poems in War Time . Sidgwick & Jackson.
