poem, too, and yet this is no simple flower poem celebrating newness. Rumens delicately suggests the humility of "perennially new" arrivals, their small head-hanging presences in the "perfect cold", only to shift from her note of wonder to a harsher appraisal of the "used, dishonest" place Spring fetches up in.[by Carol Rumens]
March, Happy Valley
from Carol Rumens: The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: "March, Happy Valley"
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The implied circularity takes us towards a general sense of war as a cycle of futility, without blurring the particular portrayal--that of a young boy subjected to a form of enslavement. It's estimated that three-quarters of the world's current conflicts recruit children. The boy-soldier is a child of our time.
[by Fred D'Aguiar]
Boy Soldier
from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Poem of the week: Poem of the week: Boy Soldier by Fred D'Aguiar
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