I started with 'To My Brother'. According to a biography I read about the poet, Vera Brittain, her brother Edward was her younger brother and he died in 1918. He was one of many deaths she had to contend with while the war raged on, but she had a special connection with this brother. While she did write poetry during the war, she also continued being inspired by the events of the war for the rest of her life. Her poetry is often related to WWI. From what I can gather 'To My Brother' was written while the war was still going on and her brother was still alive.
I then moved on to 'May Morning'. I didn't think it had anything to do with the war at first, but then I got to page two and things got rather depressing. It is a poem about spring and how wonderful spring used to be, but she is now having a hard time enjoying it. Her love died during the war. The coming of spring doesn't bring the hope that it used to bring. She wants it to, but is never sure if it ever will. I think the contrast between the past hope and the present despair was a good way to capture the feelings she was experiencing.
Don't forget to share your own 'War Remembrance' Poems for November. If you post about them, you can find Mr. Linky on this post from last week.
I had the feeling you describe from May Morning--I can't think about war poems (I was going to attempt to write about The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner) without worrying about the likelihood that my 16-year-old son might have to march off someday. This was tied in with the flag I got when my father died, his veteran's flag. So I wrote about a poem called Cemetery Nights instead.
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