Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Robert von Hallberg on poetry during wartime

Worth a read:  Robert von Hallberg, "Poets and the People: Reflections on solidarity during wartime," Boston Review (September/October 2008).  

In the essay, von Hallberg notes that Jorie Graham's Overlord suggests that soldiers in Normandy died, not for the Nation or the just cause, but simply for each other.  Soldiers die "...for no government, no ideology, only for paratroopers.  They die willingly because of the immediate conditions of military engagement.  Theirs is a morbid fraternity."