Above the Dreamless Dead: World War I Poetry and Comics

Reviewed by: Sybil Shiland - retired MSAD#6, Standish, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: May 6, 2015

Review

This book is a collection of poems many of them by soldier poets known as the 'Trench Poets' who chronicled World War I. The poems are divided into three sections - The Call to War, In the Trenches, and Aftermath. Each poem is interpreted and illustrated by a graphic artist. Although there are a few silly songs, for example, "I Don't Want to be a Soldier' that leaven the grim mood and serve as a relief to the horror of the front (as they must have for the soldiers who sang them) most of these pieces are deadly serious.

The illustrations, some extremely realistic, some more abstract, are chilling and convey the brutality of war for the soldiers and the civilians caught between armies. Animals fare no better, the terrified horse in Thomas Hardy's "I Looked up from my Writing" and the quaking mules in "Dead Man's Dump" are also casualties.

The last section features the poem "Repression of War Experience" by Siegfried Sassoon, a poemCBR that describes what was then known as shell shock and will be instantly recognized by modern readers as post traumatic stress disorder. This is a deeply affecting book and would be an excellent introduction to this group of poets but it is more important than that. "Above the Dreamless Dead" could describe the soldier's experience and the savagery of any war.

Overall Book Score: excellent