I saw this the other day in Chuck Shepherd, “News of the Weird” 9 August 2009 edition, and I quote, “British Broadcasting Corp. announced in May that it would “revive an art form” by dispatching a poet to the front lines in Afghanistan to embed with UK troops. BBC selected prominent poet Simon Armitage to mark “a new era in war poetry for the 21st century.””
Now I must wonder if those at BBC understand anything about how the war poetry of World War I came about. It was not written by professional poets, but rather written by soldiers serving in the front lines of the Western Front, or in the case of Vera Brittain, having served as a nurse among the soldiers wounded on the Western Front. Poetry such as came out of World War I comes from the heart not the head. The powerful images created by the likes of Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, and John McCrae come from experiencing first hand the horrors of war. No, a poet, merely visiting the boys on the front, shan’t produce what the BBC wants. It is a shame that those running the BBC are both ignorant and naïve about war poetry that a visit is not a substitute for first hand experience as a soldier engaged in war.
You are quite correct.
I am a combat artist, and we struggle with the same thing when we go to do our work.
The Marine Corps’ philosophy is that our work must be authentic, and that we must create work from sources that are our own. That’s why the Corps only accepts art from Marines already in theatre, or they send Marine artists to the war to see it first hand and create art about it.
Anyone can go, visit the front, take some photos, and go back home and create art (that’s kindof what the Air Force art program does…)
And we have to make sure we are not just “War Tourists”, but spend enough time with boots on the ground that we actually feel how the troops feel.
If we don’t do those things, we can have shallow art, and miss the mark of authenticity.