By Lisa Goudy
“In Flanders fields the poppies blow.”
Lt.-Col. John McCrae wrote those famous words 98 years ago to the day. The renowned war memorial poem has lived on as a reminder
of the brutality of war.
According to the Veteran Affairs Canada website, McCrae, a native of Guelph, Ont., wrote the poem in just 20 minutes beside
the Yser Canal, a couple hundred yards north of the battlefront at Ypres, Belgium.
The day before a German shell killed his close friend and former student Alexis Helmer. The next day McCrae sat and wrote
the words while looking at the grave in 20 minutes.
I think that in itself serves as reason why we should never forget war, tragedy and suffering around the world.
Yet according to some research I did on the Internet it's usually ignored by academics discussing Canadian literature.
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I agree with you!
ReplyDeleteWell thank you, Tony!
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