“In combat, men become each other's mothers," says Jonathan Shay, author of Achilles in Vietnam and one of many commentators here on the psychology of soldiers in harm's way. Shay is referring to the close and painful bond between warriors, which is forged by the sensory overload of mortal fighting and the anguish of loss. Since the beginning these feelings have been captured in verse, and director Rick King's Voices in Wartime offers an overview of the historic relationship between war and poetry, touching upon Homer's graphic descriptions of carnage in The Iliad, Walt Whitman's lyrics about America's Civil War, the legacy of such World War I soldier-poets as Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, and the shattering recollections-in-verse of Vietnam vet David Connolly. The film also includes readings by Nigerian poet Chris Abani, India's Sampurna Chattarji, and Colombia's Antonieta Villamil. On a more contemporary note, the program looks at Poets Against the War, a group that emerged after First Lady Laura Bush, concerned about stoking anti-war sentiment, canceled a 2003 White House symposium on poetry. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (T. Keogh)
Voices in Wartime
(2005) 74 min. DVD: $24.95. Cinema Libre Studio (avail. from most distributors). Color cover. Volume 21, Issue 1
Voices in Wartime
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