The Thousandth Regiment - 28. "The sharp pings muffle from the springing shrapnel"

The image of this poem - of soldiers left behind on the battlefield to watch, to reconnoiter, or to hold on in desperation - is stark and appalling. You translate this vivid scene well enough to wrench my heart. Hans’ final lines broke my heart, as I’m sure so many spirits were broken by the losses they experienced. 

i don't know how he continued to write these as he's done ... or over what period of time.  i hope to god not daily, because i can't bear to read them.

The last stanza ... is just too real. 

I have read all those sonnets so often in the last month, so one would think, that the horrible pictures must be somehow muffled now, but no, they are not. Reading the last stanza is like watching someone dieing slowly. And since you are reading and the image manifest before your inner eye, you can't even close your eyes to get distance. That you can create a translation, which brings this effect into English and reads like it was written in English, is artistry. Getting involved with those poems to do so, must be so hard for a strongly emphatic person like you. Many hugs for you.

On 10/1/2019 at 2:04 PM, Parker Owens said:

The image of this poem - of soldiers left behind on the battlefield to watch, to reconnoiter, or to hold on in desperation - is stark and appalling. You translate this vivid scene well enough to wrench my heart. Hans’ final lines broke my heart, as I’m sure so many spirits were broken by the losses they experienced. 

Thank you for this, Parker. I suppose I should be embarrassed to say this, but when I read your comment the first time, it made a spark light ignite in my head. Even though I am translating these poems, being able to recognize the exact action described is sometimes difficult. So I stick to the text as closely as I can.

In this Sonnet, I had always seen the bullets more or less coming in a low line across the no-mans-land to strike them. But now I understand Hans' "arching strokes" literally mean arc created in the sky. I have a whole new level of horror to see in the poem. He means the soldiers on the other side, who have "won" over an enemy unable to fire back, are pointing their rifles in the air. They know bullets travel back to earth from an apogee just as fast as they were fired. 

These bullets are raining down on the few dozen survivors from above. They have no way to protect themselves; they have to shelter; they don't who among them will be struck and killed.
 

On 10/1/2019 at 5:01 PM, Mikiesboy said:

i don't know how he continued to write these as he's done ... or over what period of time.  i hope to god not daily, because i can't bear to read them.

Thank you, Tim. You ask a good question, and I am pleased to let you know Hans worked on other poems too during the war. As we all might write, some of them deal with memories of better times, and some of them are about his love for Wilhelm. He also created a large an important poem called Rhapsodie. It was published in the 1917 posthumous collection along with many of the others he wrote while in uniform. 

Thanks again for reading these and encouraging me. Muah

On 10/1/2019 at 7:17 PM, MichaelS36 said:

The last stanza ... is just too real. 

Thank you, Mike. Your comment here also helped me "see" exactly what is going on in this horrendous scene. It makes knowing how millions of men suffered from PTSD after the war very, very real

On 10/2/2019 at 9:46 AM, Lyssa said:

I have read all those sonnets so often in the last month, so one would think, that the horrible pictures must be somehow muffled now, but no, they are not. Reading the last stanza is like watching someone dieing slowly. And since you are reading and the image manifest before your inner eye, you can't even close your eyes to get distance. That you can create a translation, which brings this effect into English and reads like it was written in English, is artistry. Getting involved with those poems to do so, must be so hard for a strongly emphatic person like you. Many hugs for you.

Yes, I know what you mean. Some of them I have worked on so many times, but still... Each time encountering them is like the first, especially No. 30, the Christmas poem.

But it is a hallmark of great poetry that each time a work is encountered, it seems new and different. Of course, it's not the poem that has changed, but the reader. We are ever bringing deeper understanding to what we absorb. Poems like these are meant to change people, and they do.

Thank you as always, Lyssa, for supporting me both technically and emotionally. Muah