Prose & Poetry - War Poetry of S J Robinson
Contained within this
section of the site is a collection of 23 present-day poems
written by the poet S J Robinson. Although the majority of
the poems contained within this site are contemporary - written by
combatants including
Wilfred Owen,
Siegfried Sassoon,
Rupert Brooke and
John McCrae - the collection of poems listed here, all of which are
related to World War I, resonate strongly.
Sue Robinson was born in Norfolk in 1977 and was educated at Downham High School before gaining a degree at Anglia Polytechnic University. Now working in customer service, she is studying to become a psychotherapist although she would love to be a guide for coach tours to the battlefields. Her most wild ambition is to obtain permission from Mel Gibson to try and publish a sequel to the film Maverick which he starred in and owns the character rights to.
Back on planet earth with the rest of us, she began writing poetry and childrens' stories from the age of eight whilst her fascination for the Great War started much earlier. At the age of 16, her first 'war' poem came to her during a school trip to Sanctuary Wood (Hill 62) "intact just as if it had been handed to [her]": this was also her first piece to be published. Ironically, she read no works of 'real' war poets until she encountered Sassoon and Owen through an interest in William Rivers, while at University.
She recalls, "the only war literature of the time which had really inspired me until then was a fragment of John McCrae's In Flanders' Fields -"If ye break faith with us who die/ we shall not rest/ though poppies grow/ In Flanders fields" has haunted me since the age of about three years and my way of making sure the soldiers CAN 'rest' is to remind people of what they went through, in the hope that even a few might learn from it, so it wasn't all in vain. Like Sassoon, I "could never be a pacifist, never say NO war was ever justified": my message is that remembrance is not about celebrating war as some argue: if only we learnt the lesson, we would see, Remembrance is for peace, not glory."
Each of the poems can be accessed using the sidebar to the right.
Anyone with comments or questions is invited to write to S J Robinson at hamlet@thedane.fsnet.co.uk.
The Russian war ace Alexander Kozakov claimed 20 victories during the war; his nearest compatriot, Vasili Yanchenko, claimed 16.
- Did you know?
