Remembrance
Nov. 16th, 2009 06:30 pmThe 11th November used to be called Armistice Day; now it seems to be called Remembrance day, or sometimes 11/11, presumably in imitation of the American marking of the anniversary of the World Trade Centre bombings on "9/11". I think this is a great deal to do with the fact that nobody actually remembers WW1, the Great War, the War to end all wars now. There are no veterans alive, and almost nobody who was an adult during the war, and precious few who were even alive during it.
So we have to have a special day for "Remembrance", and in the way of these things it isn't really a day any more, more of a season. It sort of merges with the Halloween season and the bonfire night season and the Christmas season. I wear a poppy between the weekend of Remembrance Sunday and the 11th itself, but they seem to be generally around, in adverts and shop displays and on people's clothes from some time in September until late enough in the year where Christmas dominates absolutely every available inch of space and attention. I'm not generally a huge fan of wearing badges that show I've donated money to charity, but I think the poppy has enough history behind it to overcome that reluctance.
It's become a kind of ceremony, somewhat detached from its original point, but one of those cultural things that people do. And part of the ceremony is posting WW1 poetry to blogs and journals. It's all conveniently out of copyright now, and still looms large in the school curriculum, and, well, people who read no modern poetry at all, or even no poetry at all, can get something out of Sassoon and Owen and McCrae and Binyon (who even made it into our liturgy, I notice). One thing I have appreciated this year is a couple of original poems commenting on the fact that everyone feels obliged to post poetry: I give you![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
papersky's Remembrance Day, and j4's At the going down of the sun.
And yeah, it is a bit ironic that it took me a week to get my act together to post this. Do read the links anyway, they are short and poignant and shocking.
So we have to have a special day for "Remembrance", and in the way of these things it isn't really a day any more, more of a season. It sort of merges with the Halloween season and the bonfire night season and the Christmas season. I wear a poppy between the weekend of Remembrance Sunday and the 11th itself, but they seem to be generally around, in adverts and shop displays and on people's clothes from some time in September until late enough in the year where Christmas dominates absolutely every available inch of space and attention. I'm not generally a huge fan of wearing badges that show I've donated money to charity, but I think the poppy has enough history behind it to overcome that reluctance.
It's become a kind of ceremony, somewhat detached from its original point, but one of those cultural things that people do. And part of the ceremony is posting WW1 poetry to blogs and journals. It's all conveniently out of copyright now, and still looms large in the school curriculum, and, well, people who read no modern poetry at all, or even no poetry at all, can get something out of Sassoon and Owen and McCrae and Binyon (who even made it into our liturgy, I notice). One thing I have appreciated this year is a couple of original poems commenting on the fact that everyone feels obliged to post poetry: I give you
papersky's Remembrance Day, and j4's At the going down of the sun. And yeah, it is a bit ironic that it took me a week to get my act together to post this. Do read the links anyway, they are short and poignant and shocking.
