Author: janice.scully

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Linda Mitchell here. Thank you Linda for hosting!

Not long ago, after the snow melted and spring was on the way, I stopped at Woodstock, NY, on my way home from a family visit. This creek runs through town.

Woodstock is not where the famous 1969 music festival was held. That was Bethel, NY, but Woodstock is an arts community, with craft shops and an independent bookstore. There I found this wonderful 2021 anthology of poems entitled, 100 POEMS TO BREAK YOUR HEART, edited by Edward Hirsch who is a poet and a teacher. Though it is not about poetry “mostly for children,”as in my blog title, I do think that some older adolescents might enjoy and learn from this book.

Hirsch has chosen one hundred stunning poems, most I’ve never heard of, and gives us a brief history of the poet and discusses why each poem continues to stir readers’ emotions.

Poet Edward Thomas was a young man, born in 1878, who loved walking and studying nature. I discovered him in this book and found this lovely photo on Wikipedia.

Edward Thomas (1878-1917)

Thomas is known today for his war poems. “The Owl” was written in February 1915 after the start of World War l. Still a civilian, with great empathy he describes the comforts of food, fire and rest during one evening, knowing these are things that soldiers and unfortunate others, are not able to enjoy that night.

THE OWL
by Edward Thomas (1915)

Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved;
Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof
Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest
Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.

Then at the inn had food, fire, and rest,
Knowing how hungry cold, and tired was I,
All of the night was quite barred out except
An owl's cry, a most melancholy cry

Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,
No merry note, nor cause of merriment,
But one telling me plain what I escaped
And others couldn't, that night, as in I went.

And salted was my food, and my repose,
Salted and sobered, too, by the bird's voice
Speaking for all who lay under the stars,
Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice. 

Three months later, Thomas joins the British Army, and two years later, died during a shell blast.

There are a few interesting craft notes that Hirsch brought to my attention. One is the owl’s cry which recalls the owl in Shakespeare’s LOVE’S LABOUR LOST. But in contrast to the Bard’s owl with its “merry note”, Thomas’ owl is melancholy.

Also the owls cry is introduced at the last line of the second stanza and the stanza break extends it’s effect with, “Shaken out long and clear upon the hill.”

The last line of the third stanza, which Hirsch describes as “an important hinge” to the poem, is eleven syllables. All the rest in the poem are ten. A hinge because it introduces the “others” that Thomas is thinking of.

In the fourth stanza, the word “salted” is a wonderful word that can simply make us think of seasoning in food, but also brings to mind tears, and sadness the author feels thinking of all those others outside the inn where he finds comfort.

This poem broke my heart. Hirsch discusses THE OWL, and many others, in a clear and accessible way.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.