Identity Crisis

I am going through a bit of an blogging identity crisis. Having bid farewell to this blog, I am now unsure what to blog about on my new blog. Thus like a child returning to a security blanket, I am blogging here, because here I have a clear message of what the point of the blog is--and that is to spread the love of poetry.

I am currently taking an Intro to Poetry class. Initially I was disappointed to find there is no writing of poetry in this class, only writing about poetry. But as the class has progressed, I have loved delving deep into the mechanisms of poetry.

One particular poem has recently stuck out to me,

Dulce et Decorum Est

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

1 DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI: Latin for, "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country."

I love the vibrant imagery of the poem--violent though it be. It's real, it's passionate, and in it's own way, beautiful. What do you think of it?