How to Be a War Poet — Part 8

In a new series of 12 monthly essays, poet, journalist, and U.S. Army veteran Randy “Sherpa” Brown explores how military service members, family members, and citizens can develop a practice of poetry toward improved mindfulness, empathy across the “civil-military divide,” and even political or social action. 

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How to Be a War Poet — Part 8

“In Flanders Fields the Poppies Blow”

by Randy “Sherpa” Brown

Let slip the phrase “war poem” to poet or professor, and there are a couple of World War I texts that seem to universally answer the call: A first would be “In Flanders Fields,” written by Canadian Lt. Col. John McCrae. McCrae was a physician who served in World War I field hospitals in France and Belgium; he died of pneumonia before the end of the war.

A second oft-cited poem would also come from the first world war: “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen. Owen was a British officer, and died in combat a week before the cessation of warfare on Nov. 11, 1918. He is remembered today for a number of poems, but particularly for “Dulce Et Decorum Est.” The latin title is the first part of a quote from the ancient Roman poet Horace, the full line of which that translates as “it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.” 

Each of these poems is about remembrance. Each, however, offers a slightly different take on what is to be remembered, and what is to be done in present day.

In evoking the battlefield cemeteries of France and Belgium, McCrae’s 1915 poem “In Flanders Fields” its likely the origin of the annual appearance of poppies each November 11th—“Remembrance Day,” as it is celebrated in Commonwealth and other countries. (In other countries, the date is “Armistice Day,” which relates to the initial end of the First World War at “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.”) In evoking the memory of wartime dead, the red poppies of Remembrance Day frequently appear as lapel pins. You’ll also like annually encounter flowery images in children’s artwork and social-media posts.

(In the United States, November 11 is “Veterans Day,” which commemorates all those who have served in uniform, while the related commemoration of the honored military dead functionally gravitates more toward “Memorial Day” every month of May.) 

McCrae’s poem memorably begins:

“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. […]”

Among veterans of all countries, Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est” is a particular shibboleth—a text that seems to signal one’s access to secret and shared knowledge, regarding what it means to have served in uniform. Bearing gruesome witness to the industrialized horrors of chemical warfare, after all, Owen’s poem exposes any promise of battlefield glory as an empty one:

“[…] Obscene as cancer,
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.”

Remember the old lie? That “it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country”? There is no glory in war—only bitter sights and smells and injuries. We cover and clutter up the old lie, whenever we dress up our memories of service with ribbons, medals, and other mementos. But it is a constant, across all branches and eras. Part of my expanded application of “The Thin Red Line.”

A related thought: American soldiers sometimes still use the historical phrase “seeing the elephant.” Although the phrase dates from the 1800s—whatever the origin story, the through-line involves a quest or journey for an ultimately disappointing experience.  We joke about whether or not new soldiers have yet “seen the elephant”—whether they have yet experienced the disappointing reality of war. I’ve also heard it used regarding military service in general. Consider it a highfalutin’ way to say “BOHICA,” perhaps, or to reference being visited by the “Green Weenie.”

It might be also appropriate to note that elephants are also thought to have good memories. Some experiences, disappointments, and memories are harder to shake. (A friendly reminder of the unnumbered Sherpatude: “Poetry can be therapeutic, but it sure as #$%^ ain’t therapy.”)

To me, Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum …” seems to imply that veterans should pass along the truth—the old lie, the real deal, the lessons-learned, the scoop, the gouge—in order to dissuade young people from participating in future wars. Or, at least, from investing so much of themselves into believing in the elephant.

Owen enlisted in 1915, was wounded by artillery in 1916. Diagnosed with what we would now label Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), he convalesced for a time in Edinburgh, Scotland, during which time he met fellow poet and officer Siegfried Sassoon. He returned to full active-service in France in July 1918.

A quote by Owen notably appears on an inscription Westminster Abbey’s “Poets’ Corner,” commemorating 16 poets of World War I. The quote is taken from Owen’s preface to his collection, posthumously published in 1920: “My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. […]”

When I was younger, I struggled to fully comprehend what Owen meant by the “pity” of war. One dictionary definition of the word is “the feeling of sorrow and compassion caused by the suffering and misfortunes of others.” Another, as a verb: “to have sympathy or show mercy for.” As a different kind of noun: “something regrettable.” Now older, I am content to maintain a certain fog around the term. I am comfortable with interpreting Owen’s “pity” as including all of these meanings, and possibly more.

There is a truism often spoken among poets—in casual research, I have failed to locate the origin of the phrase—that “all poetry is elegy.” This statement strikes me as true and useful. An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and usually more-specifically, a lament for the dead.  And any poem is an attempt to capture a moment in the past-tense—an event, a feeling, an observation. Even if imagined or composed in present-tense, the poetic moment on the page is always perceived as having happened in the past—it is a report, delivered to the reader. And because of this, every poem carries a seed of suggested mortality—a whiff of yet another latin phrase: “memento mori.”

The phrase refers to a trope that shows up in writing and visual art: “remember that you will one day die.” In it, Christians may hear echoes of “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” I’m no religious scholar, but this quote from the Quran also seems similar: “Indeed, we belong to God, and indeed to Him is our return.” I’m told that Buddhists meditate toward a mindfulness that death can strike at any time, and that, because of this, we should take advantage of every breath.

What should we remember, particularly in the month of November, as Americans celebrate Veterans Day and others celebrate Remembrance Day? Remember, that we will each one day die.

In both form and function, McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” and Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est” are  each explicitly an elegy. Given its suffocating details of chemical death, Owens’ strikes me as a little more reportorial than aspirational. His tone is also one of compassion (for those who have died) and rebuke (of those who sent the dead to war). In contrast, however, consider the last stanza of MacCrae’s poem, which seems to urge continued conflict, suggesting that the dead be somehow avenged:

“[…] 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.”

I love the imagery of MacCrae’s fields—I’ve purchased and worn my share of poppies—but I’ll also admit that the red poppies feel a bit blood-thirsty now. Now older—more world-weary, if not particularly wiser—I would prefer to regularly plead for peace, rather than for vengeance.

Remember Owen’s preface regarding the “pity of War”? He continues in his collection’s introduction:

“Yet these elegies [his poems] are to this generation in no sense consolatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful.”

He continues: “If I thought the letter of this book would last, I might have used proper names; but if the spirit of it survives—survives Prussia—my ambition and those names will have achieved themselves fresher fields than Flanders.”

Remember these words: Remember the fallen. Remember the old lie. Remember that you, too, shall die. Pity us all.

Next: Finding Your Tribe, Finding Your Troupe.

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Randy “Sherpa” Brown is a 20-year retired veteran of the Iowa Army National Guard, and the author and named editor of more than six military-themed poetry collections, anthologies, and chapbooks of poetry and non-fiction. One recent such project is “Things We Carry Still: Poems & Micro-Stories about Military Gear,” which he co-edited with fellow war poet and military spouse Lisa Stice (“Letters in Conflict: Poems,” 2024). Since 2015, he has served as the poetry editor of As You Were, the literary journal of the non-profit organization Military Experience and the Arts. He also regularly shares tips and techniques regarding military-themed writing at The Aiming Circle, a patron-supported community of writing practice. More info: linktr.ee/randysherpabrown

How to Be a War Poet — Part 7

In a new series of 12 monthly essays, poet, journalist, and U.S. Army veteran Randy “Sherpa” Brown explores how military service members, family members, and citizens can develop a practice of poetry toward improved mindfulness, empathy across the “civil-military divide,” and even political or social action. 

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How to Be a War Poet — Part 7

“Real Sailors Write Poetry”

by Randy “Sherpa” Brown

Originally scheduled for publication Oct. 24, 2025 this essay was extensively revised and reposted following the November 2024 U.S. presidential elections.

I’ve been a little at sea recently. The last time I wrote an angry war poem—one about the military, and what it means to lead and serve—it was about an acting U.S. Secretary of the Navy’s leaden response to an aircraft carrier full of U.S. sailors. As a military veteran, I was nearly dumbstruck at the time—at the appalling arrogance of a senior civilian leader, as full of himself as he was ignorance of military culture, tradition, and values. I found my way out of that squall via poetry. I talk about that later in this essay.

I’ve experienced similar feelings of disbelief and betrayal after the recent U.S. presidential elections. According to news reports, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump plans to nominate the least-experienced Secretary of Defense in the history of the United States. Yes, Pete Hegseth is a U.S. Army veteran—he may have even briefly been a member of my beloved 34th Inf. “Red Bull” Division, although I’ve not yet been able to confirm/deny. He reportedly served three overseas deployments as a company-grade officer. He is also FOX News commentator, who has in the past spouted extremist opinions regarding soldiers who are women or trans, among other topics. He was reportedly once judged too extreme to deploy to Washington, D.C. to provide security for a presidential inauguration.

These are dark and interesting times, with elected and appointed civilian leaders who are apparently willing to diminish the professionalism of those citizens who choose to serve in uniform. I worry that, to quote an admiral in “The Hunt for Red October” (1990): “This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it.” Current service members and families may have to navigate some rocky waters in the years to come. Maybe some veterans, too.

I am reminded of this haiku, part of a sequence I once wrote prompted by a call for 150-word micro-essays addressing the theme: “what should a military professional profess?” Rather than 150 words, I delivered 7 haiku, including:

“Your moral compass
should be red-light readable
for work in the dark.”

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In April 2020, during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, acting U.S. Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly relieved Capt. Brett Crozier from command of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, which was then at port in Guam. Crozier had requested via e-mail to quarantine his crew of approximately 5,000, given an outbreak of the then-novel virus aboard ship. Unfortunately for Crozier, the memorandum was eventually leaked to the media. (Some related lessons-learned here at this link.)

Relieving Crozier of command, Modly boarded the Theodore Roosevelt to address all hands via the 1MC—the ship-wide public-address system. Reading-back the transcript of the rant now, it encapsulates so much arrogance, lack of care for the troops, and ignorance of military culture and bearing. It sounds like a climactic scene-chewing, lost-my-marbles-and-my-bearing movie monologue, worthy of Bogart’s Captain Queeg in “The Caine Mutinty” (1954), or Nicholson’s Col. Nathan Jessup in “A Few Good Men” (1992).

In his 1MC tantrum, Modly said to the crew: “[I]t was my opinion, that if he didn’t think that information was going to get out into the public, in this information age that we live in, then he was [...] too naive or too stupid to be the commanding officer of a ship like this.”

The audio recording also captured the crew’s negative vocal protests to the speech. Later, as the relieved commander left the ship, the crew chanted Crozier’s name in support of their former captain. (A later acting secretary of the Navy later recommended Crozier be restored to command, although that did not happen.)

I later wrote a poem about the Modly-Crozier affair, linking the story to a lesson taught by a beloved teacher of history and government. My poem, titled “humility” (published in “Twelve O’Clock Haiku: Leadership Lessons from Old War Movies & New Poems”) evokes the tragic tale of a World War II submarine, USS Tang. In my senior year of high school, Miss Barbara Hess cryptically assigned me to research the Tang, with no other information than the ship’s name. She told me that I would recognize the lesson she intended me to learn when I discovered a particular fact.

In October 1944, on their fifth patrol, the Tang’s crew fired a last-remaining torpedo at a Japanese transport:

“[…] The Tang’s last torpedo porpoises, circles back, and strikes its own boat.
78 sailors are killed. When Kane and 8 others get to the surface, they are beaten by their Japanese rescuers.

In 2020, an acting Secretary of the Navy travels across the Pacific
to personally address the crew of USS Theodore Roosevelt.

Off-the-cuff, over the ship’s public address system, the Man in the Arena
calls their recently relieved-but-beloved captain either ‘too naive or too stupid.’

The torpedo circles back.”

Don’t worry, I’m headed somewhere with all this, roundabout and slant, like a torpedo gone wrong.

In September 2023, it was a U.S. senator who chose to denigrate and damage the military services. From February to December 2023, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), a former college football coach elected to the senate in 2021, single-handedly blocked legislative action on hundreds of U.S. military promotions—including top jobs in the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. Marine Corps, and the chief of Naval Operations (CNO).

During this timeframe, Tuberville was also known for aggrandizing his father’s World War II service, and running a charitable family foundation for veterans that reportedly dispersed few actual funds to actual veterans.

At one point during the legislative blockade, Tuberville remarked on FOX News: “Secretary Del Toro of the Navy, he needs to get to building ships, he needs to get to recruiting, and he needs to get wokeness out of our Navy. We’ve got people doing poems on aircraft carriers over the loudspeaker. It is absolutely insane the direction that we’re headed in our military, and we’re headed downhill, not uphill.”

The senator was holding the military service hostage because he doesn’t like poetry?! Obviously, Tuberville knows nothing of the navy, or its poetic traditions. 

 (My friend and fellow war poet Amalie Flynn, a U.S. Navy spouse who curates the poetry section at The Wrath-Bearing Tree literary journal, had fun with Tuberville’s lead-tongued torpedo. She designed a T-shirt for the non-profit journal’s “Wrath-Bearing Tees” fund-raising project. In red letters on gray fabric, the shirt reads, “Totally into Poetry on Aircraft Carriers.”)

The sea may be a harsh mistress, but they’ve inspired a fleet-load of poetry traditions. For example, there is a ship-board tradition of entering the first log-entry of a new year as some sort of verse. There’s even a 2023 collection of U.S. World War II deck-log poetry, “Midwatch in Verse: New Year's Deck Log Poetry of the United States Navy, 1941-1946.”

Starting in 2020, the U.S. Navy Heritage Command re-energized the practice with an annual “Deck-Log Poetry” contest. In the annual call for entries, the editors write: “The deck log is the official record maintained by all commissioned U.S. Navy vessels. While the contents of a deck log are generally fiercely regulated, the United States Navy has long held the tradition of the Midnight New Year’s Day Poem. The first entry of the New Year, written in verse, gives a brief glimpse into the minds of the sailors and shipboard life, and provides a human voice to the otherwise impersonal deck log.”

(The technique can work for modern land-lubbers, too. During one field exercise, while working the night-shift in an Army battalion’s Tactical Operations Center, or “TOC”, I attempted to rhyme all entries into the staff-duty journal. For the record, I used a DA Form 1594. Unfortunately, no one took notice—my war-poetry career was much delayed.)

Sailors need not wait to join the fleet, of course, before their first encounters with naval poetry. The “Reef Points” manual issued to all incoming midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, for example, traditionally includes a 1896 poem by R.A. Hopwood, an admiral and poet laureate of the Royal Navy. The poem is titled “The Laws of the Navy,” and sets into memorizable-rhyme approximately 20 bite-sized nuggets of sailorly wisdom. It begins:

“Now these are Laws of the Navy,
Unwritten and varied they be;
And he that is wise will observe them,
Going down in his ship to the sea;

As naught may outrun the destroyer,
Even so with the law and its grip,
For the strength of the ship is the Service,
And the strength of the Service, the ship.”

Hopwood’s poem contains continues with some advice potentially applicable to any military leaders facing off with fickle and feckless civilians. I’d love to talk with Capt. Crozier, for example, with the fourth stanza as a conversational prompt. Regardless of the personal consequences he suffered, I think he made the right call. A leader that doesn’t stand for their people isn’t a leader.

“Take heed of what ye say of your rulers,
Be your words spoken softly or plain,
Lest a bird of the air tell the matter,
And so ye shall hear it again.”

As further evidence of poetry’s place in the Navy, the poem’s fifth stanza is often referred to as “The Fifth Rule of the Navy.” Chief of U.S. Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday even cited it in his remarks to the graduating Annapolis Class of 2023:

“[...] On the strength of one link in the cable,
Dependeth on the might of the chain;
Who knows when though mayest be tested?
So live that thou bearest the strain! […]”

The captain of another U.S. aircraft carrier, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, has successfully incorporated poetry into a morale- and team-building practice aboard ship. Capt. Christopher “Chowdah” Hill took command of the “Ike” in March 2023. In an extensive, multi-page command philosophy titled “The Way of the Warrior-Sailor”—a title cheekily inspired by a Star Wars TV mini-series—puts forth his program of taking care of people, so that they can take on any mission. The 20-page illustrated document is extremely plainspoken and easy to read. In the book, Hill writes:

“Morale is the root of success. Morale leads to esprit de corps, sets the conditions for people to genuinely give a damn, and leads to a variety of successes – defeated enemies, ship survival, and conquering inspections. Too often, leaders demand things like mission success and ownership without taking into consideration what it takes to get there – sometimes ignoring morale or thinking of it as just a function of more time off or temporary happiness. Morale is way deeper than that. Morale is individual pride, human spirit, the spark of the divine.”

Where does poetry manifest itself in the ship’s daily life and morale? In a social media post on LinkedIn, Hill explained:

“Each day, the Warrior of the Day receives hands-on ship-driving instruction, a box of cookies, and a Warrior-sailor Pin (with requisite poem read aloud).” The small brass pin looks suspiciously like a helmet from the “Star Wars”-related television series, “The Mandalorian.” In the series, a members of a warrior clan often repeat the motto, “This is the Way.” It is a simple, low-cost, meme-able thing—a pop-culture artifact that is accessible to sailors of all ages and eras.

“The IKE ‘Warrior of the Day’ gets to the wear the Warrior Sailor Pin for life,” Hill continued, his tone good-natured and jovial. “To sanctify the pin, the following poem is read. It’s weird to read it out loud, but culture improvement requires a degree of weirdness and fanaticism …” Here’s the “Warrior-Sailor’s Poem,” in its entirety:

“Behold!

We have before us a genuine warrior-sailor.

Among the few who don the uniform,
even fewer rise above the rest.

Forged by sea, tougher than steel,
smiling in the face of danger.

These few warriors maser their tradecraft,
sharpening their sword, crushing every test.

Yes, indeed, these select few follow the Warrior’s Way:
A dogged love for their brothers and sisters;

The embodiment of true mission and purpose;
The pursuit of enemies crushed.

Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present
a genuine Warrior-Sailor.”

Poetry can seem silly and weird, but it can also be a lodestone. Particularly when you’re at sea.

Keep a watch out for poetry, and share it where you can. Celebrate people. Build community. Use whatever tools you have on hand. Keep your heads and your humor. Reforge those weaker links. Batten-down those hatches.

And don’t give up the ship.

Next: In Flanders Fields: War Poems on the Ground.

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Randy “Sherpa” Brown is a 20-year retired veteran of the Iowa Army National Guard, and the author and named editor of more than six military-themed poetry collections, anthologies, and chapbooks of poetry and non-fiction. One recent such project is “Things We Carry Still: Poems & Micro-Stories about Military Gear,” which he co-edited with fellow war poet and military spouse Lisa Stice (“Letters in Conflict: Poems,” 2024). Since 2015, he has served as the poetry editor of As You Were, the literary journal of the non-profit organization Military Experience and the Arts. He also regularly shares tips and techniques regarding military-themed writing at The Aiming Circle, a patron-supported community of writing practice. More info: linktr.ee/randysherpabrown

How to Be a War Poet — Part 6

In a new series of 12 monthly essays, poet, journalist, and U.S. Army veteran Randy “Sherpa” Brown explores how military service members, family members, and citizens can develop a practice of poetry toward improved mindfulness, empathy across the “civil-military divide,” and even political or social action. 

* * * * *

How to Be a War Poet — Part 6

“Touching the Face of God: War Poems in the Air”

by Randy “Sherpa” Brown

Occasionally, I wonder at how I came to rediscover poetry through writing about military experiences. The whole “citizen-soldier-poet” thing. I had written some poems back in high school, after all, but then spent decades away from it. As a journalist, I wrote in inverted pyramids, not verse. I re-engaged with poetry via a couple of writing seminars focused on military veterans and families.

In the 1970s and ’80s, I had grown up in a U.S. Air Force family that wasn’t particularly academic or literary. We did love books, however. And poetry was always present and available—on the walls, on the shelves. Along with Time-Life history books and James Michener novels or Peanuts comic books. There when needed, or wanted.

I distinctly remember at least a handful of poetry paperbacks—e.e. cummings, Robert Frost, and Wallace Stevens. I still have the cummings collection. I loved his use of “pyrographic typography”—a reviewer’s phrase that somehow remains burned in long-term memory. I also once gained a week’s worth of notoriety during my senior year of high school, after turning-in a couple of randy love poems satirically penned in the poet’s style. I learned of cummings’ ambulance-driving career in World War I France only recently. Truly, everybody is a war poet.

My mother has since handed down a framed copy of Joyce Kilmer’s 1915 poem “Trees,” which hung on the walls of her childhood home in Montana. (“I think that I shall never see / A poem as lovely as a tree […]”) A handwritten note on the back says it was the first poem she ever memorized. The poem is now displayed in my dining room.

As a practicing poet-veteran, I now also know and appreciate that Kilmer served as a U.S. National Guard citizen-soldier in a New York unit. In 1918, at age 31, he was killed by a sniper’s bullet in France. While I think that I shall never write a poem just as good as “Trees” (or “Rouge Bouquet,” for that matter), I enjoy connecting my thin red lines of experience to his.

Regardless of our family’s ever-changing military addresses, my father’s den or home office always featured what I would later come to know as a “brag wall” or “love-me wall.” In military households, it is often standard practice to display of military certificates, awards, art, and other memorabilia. To this day, my father’s wall features two brass-and-wood plaques, acquired sometime in his travels around Vietnam, Thailand, and Japan. Each design features a set of U.S. Air Force qualification wings, as well as an engraved poem.

I’m sure such items are not rare. The plaques are probably best-described as “semi-custom”—a mix of mass-produced and personalized details, made specially for G.I. tourists. I’ve seen other trophies like them, in other veteran’s homes and on the Internet, with small variations in text and emblems.

The first plaque features a silvery U.S. Air Force master navigator badge, a distinction awarded to individuals after completion of 3,000 hours of flight. The “master” badge builds on the design of the basic navigator badge—the winged shield awarded at the completion of one’s first qualification course. At 2,000 flight hours—at the “senior” rating—the shield is topped with a star. Upon achieving the “master“ rating, the star is surrounded by a laurel wreath.

Under plaque’s master navigator badge appears the poem “High Flight,” written by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. in 1941. Magee was born in China to missionary parents—his father was American, his mother was British. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II, but was killed in a mid-air collision while training on Spitfires in England. He never saw combat, but I’d still call him a war poet:

“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. […]”

Magee’s short poem also achieves this sublime landing: 

“[…] while with silent lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.”

Magee’s “High Flight” is one of those poems that becomes so popular, it becomes part of the cultural firmament. Even ground-pounders and self-described poetry-haters are likely to recognize a few of the lines. I remember the shock of electric recognition I felt as a teenager on Jan. 28, 1986, when U.S. President Ronald Reagan quoted the poem in a televised speech. The space shuttle Challenger had exploded earlier that day. Having grown up passing the “High Flight” poem in my childhood hallways, I immediately recognized the images quoted in the speech’s final paragraph. Reagan didn’t even have to explicitly cite Magee. Reagan’s closing line:

“[...] The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.’”

Such immortality, of course, also makes “High Flight” prime for parody and parroting. A poet-veteran buddy of mine, Eric “Shmo” Chandler, is a former U.S. Air Force F-16 pilot. Chandler once flew over both Iraq and Afghanistan, and now flies commercial passenger aircraft. Ask Shmo about his plans on any given day, and he’ll deliver a morale-boosting payload of bravado: “Just ‘slipping the surlies!’”

Chandler’s first poetry collection, “Hugging This Rock: Poems about Earth & Sky, Love & War,” even included a cheeky poem titled “Slipping the Surlies.” Compare his first-lines to Magee’s original:

“Oh! I've slipped the reflective belt and dirt,

And danced the skies on my dust-covered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and tried to stay alert

With my go-pills and flew a thousand rings

You have not dreamed of—wheeled over the dung

High in light-brown violence. […]”

Remember my dad’s military-themed “brag-wall” display? The second plaque features a poem titled “Low Flight,” a companion poem that transcends parody to become something of a tribute. Unattributed to a specific author, the poem is celebrated in a number of U.S. military professional communities, most usually rotary-wing aviators (aka “helicopter pilots”) and others with close-to-the-ground flying experiences. In the Vietnam War and later in Desert Storm, my father flew on tactical airlift missions as crew on a C-130 “Hercules”—a four-propped aircraft celebrated for flying low and slow, and landing on rough runways. I suspect that’s why the poem resonated with him:

“Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And hovered out of ground effect on semi-rigid blades;

earthward I’ve autoed, and met the rising brush

of non-paved terrain—and done a thousand things

You would never cared to—skidded and drooped and flared

Low in the heat soaked roar. […]”

 Instead of ending on “touched the face of God,” the poem “Low Flight” ends with ...

“[…] I’ve lumbered

The low-trespassed halls of Victor Airways,

Put out my hand, and touched a tree.”

There are plenty of other poems related to war and life in the air, of course. All modern war poetry didn’t necessarily start in the trenches of World War I, or the home-fires burning. A quick example: W.B. Yeats’ 1919 poem “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death” commemorates pilot-officer Robert Gregory, Royal Flying Corps, who was killed in a potential friendly-fire incident over Italy. Among other factors, the poem speaks to the cloudy otherworldliness that aviators may feel—not inhuman or apolitical, but an existence somewhat removed from human concerns:

“I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate

Those that I guard I do not love; […]”

There are also the “bomber poets” of World War II. Randall Jarrell, for example, trained navigators in World War II. His brutal 6-line “Death of a Ball Turret Gunner” is American War Poetry 101. “[…] Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, / I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. […]” The poem’s last line delivers the pity of war in full intensity: “When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.”

American James Dickey, named U.S. poet laureate in 1966, was during World War II a radar operator on a P-61 “Black Widow” night-fighter crew over the Pacific. I highly recommend his 1964 poem “The Firebombing,” a stream-of-consciousness poem that touch-and-goes into WWII Japan and 1960s suburbia and the Vietnam War. (Dickey also famously wrote the 1970 thriller “Deliverance,” about a group of city friends on a dangerous canoe trip in Northern Georgia. The book was made into a 1972 movie.)

American poet Richard Hugo is a relatively recent literary hero of mine, discovered while I was obsessively researching a hybrid monograph about lessons-learned, war movies, and bomber poetry. Hugo flew missions out of World War II Italy as a bombardier on B-24 “Liberator” aircrew. Known for his plainspoken poetic style, Hugo once wrote a letter-poem (“Letter to Simic from Boulder”) of apology to fellow American poet Charles Simic. He had realized that, during the war, he might’ve bombed Simic’s hometown of Belgrade, Yugoslavia—and potentially, Simic himself!

“Dear Charles: And so we meet once in San Francisco and I learn

I bombed you long ago in Belgrade when you were five.

I remember. We were after a bridge on the Danube

hoping to cut the German armies off as they fled north

from Greece. We missed. Not unusual, considering I

was one of the bombardiers. I couldn’t hit my ass if

I sat on the Norden or rode a bomb down singing

The Star Spangled Banner. I remember Belgrade opened

like a rose when we came in. Not much flak. I didn’t know

about the daily hangings, the 80,000 Slavs who dangled

from German ropes in the city, lessons to the rest.

I was interested mainly in staying alive, that moment

the plane jumped free from the weight of bombs and we went home. […]”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry—the French author of the modernist children’s fable “The Little Prince”—was also a poet, and a reconnaissance pilot. During World War II, he flew reconnaissance missions in a fork-tailed P-38 “Lightning” over the Mediterranean. While he also eventually met his fate somewhere in the war and clouds above, I’ve recently posted his poem “Generation to Generation” on my own office wall. (It can also found as reading No. 649 in the gray-covered Unitarian Universalist hymnal, “Singing the Living Tradition.”) 

It’s not a brass plaque on a brag-wall, but my new poetic quote-note reminds me to focus on what we’ve carried, and what we leave behind. We may shoot our bodies and words into the air, but Exupéry offers this grounded advice:

“[…] Let us build memories in our children,

lest they drag out joyless lives,

lest they allow treasures to be lost because

they have not been given the keys.

We live, not by things, but by the meanings

of things. It is needful to transmit the passwords

from generation to generation.”

You don’t need poetry to touch God. Or a tree.

Or to take flight. Or to seek forgiveness.

But I'm certain it can help.

Next: Real Sailors Write Poetry: War Poems at Sea.

* * * * *

Randy “Sherpa” Brown is a 20-year retired veteran of the Iowa Army National Guard, and the author and named editor of more than six military-themed poetry collections, anthologies, and chapbooks of poetry and non-fiction. One recent such project is “Things We Carry Still: Poems & Micro-Stories about Military Gear,” which he co-edited with fellow war poet and military spouse Lisa Stice (“Letters in Conflict: Poems,” 2024). Since 2015, he has served as the poetry editor of As You Were, the literary journal of the non-profit organization Military Experience and the Arts. He also regularly shares tips and techniques regarding military-themed writing at The Aiming Circle, a patron-supported community of writing practice. More info: linktr.ee/randysherpabrown