{"id":1086,"date":"2015-10-04T15:33:56","date_gmt":"2015-10-04T22:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/?p=1086"},"modified":"2015-10-04T15:33:56","modified_gmt":"2015-10-04T22:33:56","slug":"all-a-poet-can-do-is-warn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/?p=1086","title":{"rendered":"All a poet can do is warn"},"content":{"rendered":"

All a poet can do today is warn.<\/em>
\n–Wilfred Owen<\/p>\n

Cream plastic transistor radio close to my ear, I sat by the window of our London bedsitter, hearing familiar words set to brand new music: the premiere of Benjamin Britten\u2019s “War Requiem”. The May 30, 1962 performance was part of a festival to mark the consecration of St Michaels Cathedral in Coventry, a new modern building set alongside the bombed-out ruins of the old.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I had a personal interest in the cathedral, since one of my assignments for my New Zealand newspaper had been to interview the glass engraver John Hutton, one of the many eminent artists whose work graced the new building.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I was also caught up in the prevailing excitement about the completion of this significant architectural and spiritual project. Contained within the walls of the new cathedral was the idea of reconciliation, that it would be a place that would, in the words of the cathedral website<\/a>, play a part in<\/p>\n

Healing the Wounds of History
\nLearning to Live with Difference and to Celebrate Diversity
\nBuilding a Culture of Peace<\/span><\/p>\n

But mostly my interest was in the poetry of this new musical work. I had been introduced to the poems of Wilfred Owen in high school. A soldier who died on the battlefield in the last week of the first World War, he wrote searing indictments of that war\u2019s ravages. To me as a student, it was a revelation that poetry could be used to express such pain and anger.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I already had some familiarity with Britten\u2019s music, but I was blown away by the “War Requiem”, which interweaves Owen\u2019s poems with the traditional Latin of the requiem mass. I was brought to tears by Britten\u2019s handling of Owen\u2019s poem of reconciliation, \u201cStrange Meeting,\u201d in the concluding section of the work. In the poem, Owen imagines two dead soldiers, one English, one German, who meet each other<\/p>\n

Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped<\/em>
\nThrough granites which titanic wars had groined<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0They share life stories:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Whatever hope is yours,<\/em>
\nWas my life also; I went hunting wild<\/em>
\nAfter the wildest beauty in the world
\n\u2026<\/em>
\nI mean the truth untold,<\/em>
\nThe pity of war, the pity war distilled<\/em>
\n\u2026<\/em>
\nI am the enemy you killed, my friend.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0The poem ends with the line Let us sleep now \u2026<\/em> which Britten repeats and extends in a hypnotically murmuring lullaby.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I have listen to the “War Requiem” many times since that memorable evening in London. It still brings me to tears.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"cd<\/a>A 1963 audio CD of the War Requiem, featuring the soloists for whom it was written, Peter Pears, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and Galina Vishnevskaya, is available on Amazon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Poetry Foundation <\/a>website has a good selection of Wilfred Owen\u2019s poems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All a poet can do today is warn. –Wilfred Owen Cream plastic transistor radio close to my ear, I sat by the window of our London bedsitter, hearing familiar words set to brand new music: the premiere of Benjamin Britten\u2019s “War Requiem”. The May 30, 1962 performance was part of a festival to mark the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[311,129,7,5],"tags":[316,315,317,318],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1086"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1086"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1123,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1086\/revisions\/1123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}