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To the Flag! A Selection of Patriotic & Military Verse
To the Flag A Selection of Patriotic Military Verse Author:Steven C. Myers, Captain, US Navy (Ret.) Penned over the course of four decades, this volume of verse is the product of a military professional’s unique love of literature and his dedication to service and country. Captain Myers’ first critically reviewed poem was written in high school, and “. . . my teacher, a dramaturge, was impressed by it and encouraged me to... more » continue writing.” Poetry extended into service to country: A case in point is Kipling’s Barrack Room Ballads, whose sometimes jingoistic (but powerfully put) words fail today’s test of political correctness. An important window into the British imperial period would be closed to literature without the Barrack Room Ballads.. From “The Widow's Party”: “we broke a king and we built a road the courthouse stands where the regiment goed and clean water flows where the raw blood flowed when the Widow give a party.” The rules in those days were different than now—but “the rules” nonetheless—and Kipling captured the essence in a poem. In “Victoriana,” one of the poems there are echoes: “So, in smart ranks we gathered there, awaitin’ word to march, To where a nasty battle waits—but that is just me hunch— For regiments as such as we ain’t made to dance ‘and sing, And problem-solving by the sword is what we always bring.” “The brilliant, often bitter handiwork of WWI poets (Owens, Kilmer, Sassoon, and Brooke, to name several) attached emotion and irony to tale-telling in verse. I have found the same energies in my own work. Additionally, the use of metaphors in writing poetry seemed to parallel the creation of hidden information as well as the revelation that results from uncovering it. What is more ironic than an armor-clad, battle-hardened soldier, weapon ready, who stops to scratch the ear of a kitten he meets in a dusty, dangerous street in Basrah, Iraq? I saw such a picture once, and a poem, in ‘To the Flag!’ formed around it, like a flash of lightning. “Poems come to me almost spontaneously,” Myers admits, “I often wonder whether there’s a stack of them inside my brain, each waiting at its own time, to move to fingertips and a writing instrument for expression.” The author had no comment on what happens when the stack runs out.« less