Monday, January 31, 2005 -- 8:02 AM

Some of Hemingway's Poetry

As it is generally known, Hemingway considered himself first and foremost a poet, and only secondly a writer of prose. Anyone who is familiar with A Farewell to Arms will not question this. As poetry is structured upon emotion, so this novel of war and love shows not so much a story of a man as his emotions and his emotional response to the situations he finds himself in. Hemingway prided himself in, and boasted considerably of his ability to write truly with the effect of poetry, continually editing and whittling away the unnecessary bits until he was left with only the bare gem of a story, encased in an emotional journey.

In spite of his success and fame as a writer of novels, Hemingway did write some poetry, based mainly on his war experiences: his time spent among soldiers and his one near death experience on a battlefield in Italy. All of this poetry was written much later when he was in the United States, or very much later while living in Paris.

[All armies are the same...]
All armies are the same
Publicity is fame
Artillery makes the same old noise
Valor is an attribute of boys
Old soldiers all have tired eyes
All soldiers hear the same old lies
Dead bodies have always drawn flies

Paris 1922


Killed Piave-July 8-1918
Desire and
All the sweet pulsing aches
And gentle hurtings
That were you,
Are gone into the sullen dark.
Now in the night you come unsmiling
To lie with me
A dull, cold, rigid bayonet
On my hot-swollen, throbbing soul

Chicago 1921