July 30, 2018 marked the centenary of the death of American poet Alfred Joyce Kilmer in World War I. Jesuit magazine America posted a 2018 article, "The tragedy of Joyce Kilmer, the Catholic poet killed in World War I," about Kilmer's education, family life, conversion, poetry, and heroism to memorialize the anniversary of Kilmer's death. Kilmer's well-known poem "Trees" was published in Poetry magazine in August 1913 before the start of World War I.
Look at the influence of war and poetry on culture, art, and music. Not only did Kilmer's "Rouge Bouquet" influence the 1940 movie "The Fighting 69th," but it also inspired the Irish composer Victor Herbert in his composition of "When the Sixty-Ninth Comes Back" [lyrics and music] that the Regimental Band played in the New York City Fifth Avenue parade marking the end of World War I. More recently, the Irish band The Fenians has sung a version of "The Fighting Sixty-Ninth" [The lyrics allude to the Fighting 69th of the American Civil War.]
The "rouge bouquet" might allude to the red poppies that have come to symbolize fallen soldiers. To commemorate the British who died in World War I, artist Paul Cummings designed an artistic installation of 888,246 ceramic poppies displayed at the Tower of London in 2014 to mark the beginning of World War I. NPR covered the event in "A Sea of Red Poppies Honors Britain's World War I Dead."
In "Flanders Fields," Canadian physician and poet John Macrae writes a rondeau in which the speaker describes the poppies in the fields of Belgium where his friend died in the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
What legacy will we leave in 100 years that will affect art, music, poetry, and culture?
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