War
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From page 3: For the sake of form For the sake of form, let us have partition— good to the right, bad to the left, warriors in white, warriors in black— and so, arranged thus, let battle commence. From page 169: Dresden pre-echo Rachmaninoff in Dresden, 1926, confronts the shambles of our musical thought with his Fourth Concerto, brings before us the grotesque destruction perpetrated in the air raids of World War Two; in the sudden crescendo of the second movement I hear the razing to the ground of cities, in the subsequent heaving, dragging tread through the orchestra something of our attempt to right ourselves from the ashes; but the music gives us no more release than we give ourselves, violence is too deeply woven into our psyche, war is the only course we appear to understand; a blighted intelligence outlived its purpose, unless that purpose is to wipe out all civilization, all art, all life from this wretched planet.
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About the Book
Introduction The use of the word war today is ambiguous. The recent occupation of Iraq by members of a coalition led by the USA is frequently referred to as an act of war. It is hardly that when the world’s most powerful nation militarily sweeps into a country which is unable to offer any effective or meaningful resistance. Some call such an act a turkey shoot. Matters military dominate our so-called civilization. Venture into the British countryside on any weekday and you are almost certain to encounter some form of military exercise. Intensive low-flying training has been going on there for several decades. The Ministry of Defence in cahoots with NATO ensures that vast resources are poured into the military. It is all very high tech stuff but most of it is about keeping a vested interest in motion. Military policy is shrouded in secrecy but it needs no high intelligence to work out that supersonic fighter jets have nothing to do with protecting us against terrorism. These poems allude to war in this broader understanding of the word. John Vetterlein Orkney June 2005
About the Author
John Vetterlein was born in 1935. He spent the years of the Second World War at Redbridge, on the eastern approaches to London, and considers himself fortunate to have survived the V1 (flying bomb) and V2 (rocket) attacks. His father served throughout that war in the Royal Air Force. Having studied physics and mathematics, Vetterlein went on to work in civilian hospitals as a conscientious objector to military National Service. Before continuing his studies in chemistry and pharmacology, he worked as an astronomer and lecturer. In 1971, following a short spell as a secondary school teacher in London, Vetterlein moved to Wales in order to concentrate on writing and music. He worked in the Music Department, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth from 1983 until its closure in 1990. John Vetterlein is a true polymath. He is a prolific writer: his fiction output alone includes sixteen novels, six books of short stories, long stories, plays for radio and twenty poetry collections. An active musician, John Vetterlein is a member of the Haydn Society of Great Britain, the Rachmaninoff Society and the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society. His association with Orkney goes back to 1970. He has lived on Rousay full-time since 1990 from where he pursues his interests in astronomy, hill walking, music, photography and writing.