J ohn Gr e e n i n g
OxfordPoets
To the War Poets In To the War Poets John Greening sends despatches across the decades, looking back over the century since the outbreak of the First World War. In a sequence of verse letters he addresses the war poets directly, making connections yet always aware of distance: ‘No larks, / just the passing of traffic.’ Greening explores ‘Englishness’, but also – in his translations from Heym, Trakl, Stadler and Stramm – provides an alternative perspective. From the discovery of the Sutton Hoo burial just before the start of the Second World War to the security forces’ shut-down of Heathrow airport in 2006, the presence or threat of conflict underlies Greening’s precise, unsentimental address on the centenary of the Great War.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOHN GREENING was born in 1954 and studied at the universities of Swansea, Mannheim and Exeter. He reviews for the TLS and has won several major honours including an Arvon Prize, the Bridport Prize, a Cholmondeley Award, a Hawthornden Fellowship and a Scottish Arts Council Award. He has written twelve poetry collections, studies of British and Irish poets, and the recent Poetry Masterclass (2011). Poet ry 26
So there you lie, about to die but not until St George’s, when they’ll bury you on Skyros, Achilles’ home, and watch the trickle begin (from brook to river to flood) out of this dry island. from ‘To Rupert Brooke’
NOVEMBER 2013 ISBN 978 1 90618 808 5 80 pp PAPER £9.95 World