"Violets" by Roland Leighton (read by Veronica Suarez)

Hey Everyone,
I saw the film, Testament of Youth, when it was released years ago, and I was moved by the performances from the actors and by the themes of the book. The film is based on the anti-war memoir of the same name, written by feminist, Vera Brittain. The book is a well-known account of WW1 that won many awards when it was released and continues to capture readers to this day.
With the crisis and war in Ukraine and Europe, I felt it was important to bring back this poem and memoir for modern readers and viewers of "videopoetry." I'd like to share context about this poem as I featured it in my recent article about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where I also analyze poems from Ukrainian poets: www.readpoetry...
"To understand the implications of a world war, we must travel back to Britain and World War I. In her memoir, Testament of Youth, poet and novelist Vera Brittain writes of the patriotism the British people had before the Great War and then recounts the devastation the warfare brought them. The memoir is the story of feminist Brittain, an Oxford scholar who joins the cause in 1917 and enlists as a nurse to tend to wounded soldiers. The book also follows the lives of all the men in her life who died because of the war, including her brother, her best friends, and her fiancé, Roland Leighton, who writes her love letters and poems from the frontlines and trenches of the British units.
In one letter, Leighton sends her a villanelle recounting a traumatic encounter with a dead soldier. In the poem, Leighton lyrically describes the blue violets he found near the “mangled body” of the soldier, whose head was soaked in blood. The attention he gives to the death of the soldier reveals the complexity and lessons of the battlefield: In a war, no side wins, and the losses and devastation have immense psychological repercussions. In fact, when Leighton briefly visits Brittain on leave, he returns with PTSD, which was known then as shell shock. Even though the memoir is anti-war, it still shows the complexity of the situation: This was “The Great War,” and it initially felt justified to the Western Allies, but 16 million soldiers and civilians died because of the conflict."
Image Credit:
www.westernfro...
Poetry Credit: warpoets.org.u...
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[@PoetryETrain]

Applause!

[@PoetrySpokencom]

Thank you. :)

[@rytold8471]

its been too long!

[@PoetrySpokencom]

Yes, too long. A year! We missed making videos and sharing it with you all.