victim of the war in Ukraine (Still Miracle Photography)Three Poems on War, by Susan Jarvis Bryant The Society March 10, 2025 Culture, Pantoum, Poetry 14 Comments . The Core of War a pantoum The trickster charms and arms both sides— He funds the ally and the foe. His hype unites and it divides. He’s oh so anti… also pro. He funds the ally and the foe. His crimson riches rocket in. He’s oh so anti… also pro— Securing him a wicked win. His crimson riches rocket in. He casts the loaded die with glee Securing him a wicked win— He revels in his devilry. He casts the loaded die with glee. He shimmers in the battle’s blaze. He revels in his devilry— The pain of constant conflict pays. He shimmers in the battle’s blaze. His hype unites and it divides. The pain of constant conflict pays— The trickster arms and harms both sides. . . Contesting Etiquette When cherished men are hunted down like beasts, Seized from native streets in blatant view, Bludgeoned, drafted, armed and then released To fight and die for lies passed off as true— There isn’t a democracy to save… And yet this myth is peddled by a star Attired for battle. Rooters hear him rave From TV screens beyond war’s abattoir Where husbands, sons and fathers robbed of choice Are forced to face the grinding jaws of death. A global god has stilled his people’s voice— His iron fist has snuffed their very breath… Perhaps this bankrolled idol drenched in blood Should have his lauded name hauled through the mud. . . Battle Backchat I’ve heard it said that all is fair in war— A nasty stance, a nauseating quip Pushed by squawking hawks all hot for gore. The crooks grow rich when Odin cracks his whip. . . Susan Jarvis Bryant is a poet originally from the U.K., now living on the Gulf Coast of Texas. NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets. The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary. 14 Responses Mark Stellinga March 10, 2025 Susan, I’m sensing Lindsey Graham & Volodymyr Zelensky (in particular) in these 1st 2 pieces. Am I on the right track? Nothing like a pantoum to make ones point. So well said – Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant March 11, 2025 Mark, thank you very much for reading and commenting. I’m glad my choice of the pantoum form was a success in getting my point across… a point I drew inspiration on from current events in the hope the message would transcend the here and now. Perhaps it’s too soon to tell. Reply Russel Winick March 10, 2025 Susan – All three of these poems cogently reflect your extraordinary linguistic talent. I especially like the subtle changes in the final line of The Core of War. It would be most enlightening if one could somehow access your thought process in creating a poem like that! Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant March 11, 2025 Russel, thank you so much for your attentive read and your appreciation of my efforts. As for my thoughts when writing The Core of War, I always try to pair a hard-hitting message with an ideal form. The futility of ongoing war demanded a repetitive form to hammer home the endless cycle of money-making bloodshed – the side of war too often overlooked. Reply Roy Eugene Peterson March 10, 2025 1.) How superbly you found a perfect combination to begin and end “The Core of War.” War profiteers “charm and arm” while they “arm and harm” both sides. 2.) The object of your second poem comes through clearly to me. Perceptions will vary on this one, since history has thousands of examples. 3.) The same object may be said of the third poem, yet there are so many throughout history to whom this also applies. Odin cracking the whip was a fascinating turn of phrase. All three poems belong in the pantheon of great war poems as communicated to us by an astute observer, clever writer, and adept rhymer. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant March 11, 2025 Roy, I thank you wholeheartedly for your astute, encouraging, and heartening comment. I particularly appreciate your calm consideration and fair stance when it comes the subject matter of my poems. Of my second poem you say: “Perceptions will vary on this one, since history has thousands of examples.” yet still you acknowledge the craft and its significance. It’s easy to be oblivious to the creative value of a poem when one is so butt hurt by the contents the intricacies of the craft are overlooked. Roy, you have made me smile. Reply Joseph S. Salemi March 10, 2025 These three pieces are top-notch, as usual. The first reminds me that during and immediately after World War I, there was a steady outcry against “war profiteers” who had grown immensely rich in the armaments and ammo trade, or by supplying vast amounts of foodstuffs to the military. The anger had grown so familiar that in the American comic strip “Little Orphan Annie,” the main character’s stepfather was called “Daddy Warbucks,” in a grim allusion as to how he had become so wealthy. Today we have the same major corporations slavering over the prospect of a continued war in the Ukraine, and maybe even a bigger one with NATO and Russia. But we don’t seem to hear as much outcry against them. The second reminds me that our modern concept of “total” war is a product of the French Revolution and its democratization of vast armies, mustered by forced drafts of manpower. The Napoleonic wars set the stage for our World Wars. What was the casualty count for the Battle of Hastings as opposed to the Battle of Verdun? The third reminds me of my father, who fought in Tunisia, Sicily, the Anzio beachhead, and the Po Valley. When anyone said “All’s fair in war,” he would reply “Yeah — but you live with what you did and what you saw for the rest of your life.” Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant March 11, 2025 Joe, thank you very much for your appreciation and for your compelling comments. Your mention of profiteering puts me in mind of Winston Churchill. He nearly lost Chartwell (his home since 1922) after WWII because he was struggling financially. His friends rallied round and helped him to remain there until his death in 1965. This is in stark contrast to Tony Blair, living in luxury courtesy of the profits he makes on the endless stream of war in the Middle East. With ceaseless war in mind, your observation on the casualty count for the Battle of Hastings as opposed to the Battle of Verdun is a chilling reminder of why endless war is so appealing to those growing fat on the blood and guts of innocents. Only those who have fought the brave fight know just how horrific war is. Your father’s response to “All is fair in war” says it all. My grandfather witnessed horrific acts while fighting in WWII. He was responsible for collecting dog tags and possessions from German prisoners of war when the war ended. The family photographs the soldiers handed to him my granddad handed back. He told me the only difference between the German soldiers and the English ones was their place of birth. That stuck with me till this day, which is why I wanted to speak out for those without a voice. Until I read your comment, I hadn’t realized what a huge role my place of birth and family history had played in the creation of this series. Joe – thanks again! Reply Brian Yapko March 11, 2025 Three painful and hard-hitting poems, Susan, which are very timely given the astonishing war-dynamic that has developed among our liberal friends who seem to love forever-wars and terrorism. Battle Backchat offers an insightful snippet of who benefits and who pulls the strings. Odin is an interesting choice here since you decided to go Norse rather than Judeo-Christian or Greco-Latin. You could easily have said “Satan cracks his whip.” Or “Ares cracks his whip.” Either would have scanned. So I feel there’s a subtext here that I’d be interested to hear about. (I suspect it has nothing to do with Greenland.) Contesting Etiquette is a sonnet with the most improbable of sonnet subject matter. You write it beautifully as it zeroes in on a “global god” who is a miserably false one who yet garners the praise and trust of the fools who keep thinking that war — especially his war — is a noble thing. I well understand that you have one specific war in mind and one improbable “rock star” who so many liberals adore without just cause. I don’t intend to get into a comment war with people so I choose to see this “star” as emblematic of many who have used war as a tool of vanity — like those who Jonathan Swift pointed out would go to war over which end of the soft-boiled egg ought to be cracked. The war you speak of and those like it have nothing to do with nobility and everything to do with political overreach, vanity and profit. Some wars are noble. World War II was noble. But this one is not. Your observations reveal nothing of justice — only death, mangled bodies in the dubious service of profiteering and power-grabs, especially by one uniquely unworthy star who “reaps the financial rewards.” Along these lines, my favorite of the three poems is the somewhat less visceral pantoum, The Core of War. I always find pantoums to be an odd poetic form – Malaysian in origin but – at least to me — no less comfortable in English than a rondeau. The beauty of the pantoum is the way the repetends suggest a cyclic nature to the theme. But there is also a logical aspect to this form, almost as if the various stanzas were syllogisms. The words turn about in an almost puzzle-like fashion and get reused with different meanings in each stanza, almost like the cubes in a Rubik’s cube. It takes a really skilled poet to make it mean something and you take it to the limit as you explore the nefarious doings of “the trickster” for whom “constant conflict pays.” Specifically, you bring the reader on a journey from “The trickster arms and charms both sides” to the end “The trickster arms and harms both sides.” The transformation from “charm” to “harm” here is skillful, meaningful and subtle — like the acts of the trickster himself. I can visualize so many dreadful public figures in this “trickster” role. Isn’t that awful? Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant March 11, 2025 Brian, thank you so very much for your close and insightful reading. I thoroughly appreciate your eye for the finer details. I too have noticed that the former love-and-peace promotors are now baying for war with no mention of the trail of devastation the Western world has left behind in the Middle East. I’m baffled. As far as the choice of Odin is concerned, he was the first figure who sprung to mind. I always see him when war is mentioned. I think it’s my British roots – the Vikings have an awful lot to answer for as far as the Anglo-Saxons are concerned. Your observations on “Contesting Etiquette” are spot on. It was inspired by the sheer ignorance concerning the history behind the headlines and how opinion pieces alone tug at the heartstrings and… voila – a new idol is born. The history books don’t matter when it comes to drawing a fair conclusion. The screaming headlines and media spotlight guides our collective conscience all the way to the bank, where we the people pay the puppeteers. The “star” of my poem is indeed “emblematic of many who have used war as a tool of vanity”, and I just love the soft-boiled-egg analogy. I am growing to appreciate Swift more and more as I grow older and dumber. Brian, I have grown to love the pantoum form. Initially I found it tricky, but as you say so eloquently: “The beauty of the pantoum is the way the repetends suggest a cyclic nature to the theme.” – and gosh the cyclic nature of war begged for a pantoum. When I choose a form to showcase a theme… and it works, I couldn’t be happier. And for me, this one did that. I wrote it with pain in my heart and a sense of urgency hoping my despair would rub off a little. It pays to do personal research instead of relying on opinion pieces, and to think long and hard before promoting endless horror from the comfort of the sofa. Willful ignorance is the enemy of those suffering. The trickster has a lot to answer for and it’s our job to call all those grinning tricksters out, and yes, there’s a lot of them. Brian – as ever, I have gained from our exchange. Thank you! Reply Jeff Eardley March 11, 2025 Susan, this is just about as good as poetry can get. I was reminded of the Bob Dylan song, “Masters of War” which was nailing this subject on the head decades ago. I was filled with horror last week when I read that North Korean soldiers, laying down their lives for Putin, are told that if they are captured or surrender, their families will be executed. Three of your best today. Thank you. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant March 11, 2025 Jeff, it’s always lovely to chat with you. It’s a pity the subject is so darn grim. Yes, those hiding behind walls and desks and profiting from death have an awful lot to answer for. My heart aches for all those snatched by the jaws of war in the name of riches for the growing-ever-richer. Jeff, thank you. Reply C.B. Anderson March 11, 2025 I like a good war … or at least a good war movie. But I hate a bad war and I hate warmongers in the Federal Government who want to keep it going on forever. Last I heard, Trump et al. are getting close to an end-game. Better sooner than later. Reply Mary Jane Myers March 12, 2025 Susan An accomplished trio (with brio!) Your three poems display the full power of formal traditional forms. The poems are timeless—they could refer to any war, any year. Yet a contemporary audience immediately thinks of the ongoing nightmare in Ukraine. The poems are I think more powerful than if there were exact references to any actual contemporary event. Pantoum: this form is interesting to work with—it always has an incantatory flavor. In this case, because it’s a war theme, the incantation becomes almost hallucinatory. The iambic tetrameter lines are short and memorable. The use of consonantal and assonantal “wordplay” is strong: charms and arms; crimson riches rocket in; wicked win; revels in his devilry; battle’s blaze; pain of constant conflict pays; charms and harms. Your change to the last line is significant: arms both sides Line– 1; harms both sides– line 20. Shakespearean Sonnet: Perfect iambic pentameter (brava!), and the couplet “summary” is a call to action: that the lauded name should be hauled through mud. Epigram: 4 lines iambic pentameter; perfect cross-rhymes. This is “punchy” as epigrams are meant to be. Strong use of “wordplay” consonance and assonance: nasty stance; squawking hawks; crooks grow rich/cracks his whip. Bravissima! Mary Jane Reply Leave a Reply Cancel ReplyYour email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Mark Stellinga March 10, 2025 Susan, I’m sensing Lindsey Graham & Volodymyr Zelensky (in particular) in these 1st 2 pieces. Am I on the right track? Nothing like a pantoum to make ones point. So well said – Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant March 11, 2025 Mark, thank you very much for reading and commenting. I’m glad my choice of the pantoum form was a success in getting my point across… a point I drew inspiration on from current events in the hope the message would transcend the here and now. Perhaps it’s too soon to tell. Reply
Russel Winick March 10, 2025 Susan – All three of these poems cogently reflect your extraordinary linguistic talent. I especially like the subtle changes in the final line of The Core of War. It would be most enlightening if one could somehow access your thought process in creating a poem like that! Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant March 11, 2025 Russel, thank you so much for your attentive read and your appreciation of my efforts. As for my thoughts when writing The Core of War, I always try to pair a hard-hitting message with an ideal form. The futility of ongoing war demanded a repetitive form to hammer home the endless cycle of money-making bloodshed – the side of war too often overlooked. Reply
Roy Eugene Peterson March 10, 2025 1.) How superbly you found a perfect combination to begin and end “The Core of War.” War profiteers “charm and arm” while they “arm and harm” both sides. 2.) The object of your second poem comes through clearly to me. Perceptions will vary on this one, since history has thousands of examples. 3.) The same object may be said of the third poem, yet there are so many throughout history to whom this also applies. Odin cracking the whip was a fascinating turn of phrase. All three poems belong in the pantheon of great war poems as communicated to us by an astute observer, clever writer, and adept rhymer. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant March 11, 2025 Roy, I thank you wholeheartedly for your astute, encouraging, and heartening comment. I particularly appreciate your calm consideration and fair stance when it comes the subject matter of my poems. Of my second poem you say: “Perceptions will vary on this one, since history has thousands of examples.” yet still you acknowledge the craft and its significance. It’s easy to be oblivious to the creative value of a poem when one is so butt hurt by the contents the intricacies of the craft are overlooked. Roy, you have made me smile. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi March 10, 2025 These three pieces are top-notch, as usual. The first reminds me that during and immediately after World War I, there was a steady outcry against “war profiteers” who had grown immensely rich in the armaments and ammo trade, or by supplying vast amounts of foodstuffs to the military. The anger had grown so familiar that in the American comic strip “Little Orphan Annie,” the main character’s stepfather was called “Daddy Warbucks,” in a grim allusion as to how he had become so wealthy. Today we have the same major corporations slavering over the prospect of a continued war in the Ukraine, and maybe even a bigger one with NATO and Russia. But we don’t seem to hear as much outcry against them. The second reminds me that our modern concept of “total” war is a product of the French Revolution and its democratization of vast armies, mustered by forced drafts of manpower. The Napoleonic wars set the stage for our World Wars. What was the casualty count for the Battle of Hastings as opposed to the Battle of Verdun? The third reminds me of my father, who fought in Tunisia, Sicily, the Anzio beachhead, and the Po Valley. When anyone said “All’s fair in war,” he would reply “Yeah — but you live with what you did and what you saw for the rest of your life.” Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant March 11, 2025 Joe, thank you very much for your appreciation and for your compelling comments. Your mention of profiteering puts me in mind of Winston Churchill. He nearly lost Chartwell (his home since 1922) after WWII because he was struggling financially. His friends rallied round and helped him to remain there until his death in 1965. This is in stark contrast to Tony Blair, living in luxury courtesy of the profits he makes on the endless stream of war in the Middle East. With ceaseless war in mind, your observation on the casualty count for the Battle of Hastings as opposed to the Battle of Verdun is a chilling reminder of why endless war is so appealing to those growing fat on the blood and guts of innocents. Only those who have fought the brave fight know just how horrific war is. Your father’s response to “All is fair in war” says it all. My grandfather witnessed horrific acts while fighting in WWII. He was responsible for collecting dog tags and possessions from German prisoners of war when the war ended. The family photographs the soldiers handed to him my granddad handed back. He told me the only difference between the German soldiers and the English ones was their place of birth. That stuck with me till this day, which is why I wanted to speak out for those without a voice. Until I read your comment, I hadn’t realized what a huge role my place of birth and family history had played in the creation of this series. Joe – thanks again! Reply
Brian Yapko March 11, 2025 Three painful and hard-hitting poems, Susan, which are very timely given the astonishing war-dynamic that has developed among our liberal friends who seem to love forever-wars and terrorism. Battle Backchat offers an insightful snippet of who benefits and who pulls the strings. Odin is an interesting choice here since you decided to go Norse rather than Judeo-Christian or Greco-Latin. You could easily have said “Satan cracks his whip.” Or “Ares cracks his whip.” Either would have scanned. So I feel there’s a subtext here that I’d be interested to hear about. (I suspect it has nothing to do with Greenland.) Contesting Etiquette is a sonnet with the most improbable of sonnet subject matter. You write it beautifully as it zeroes in on a “global god” who is a miserably false one who yet garners the praise and trust of the fools who keep thinking that war — especially his war — is a noble thing. I well understand that you have one specific war in mind and one improbable “rock star” who so many liberals adore without just cause. I don’t intend to get into a comment war with people so I choose to see this “star” as emblematic of many who have used war as a tool of vanity — like those who Jonathan Swift pointed out would go to war over which end of the soft-boiled egg ought to be cracked. The war you speak of and those like it have nothing to do with nobility and everything to do with political overreach, vanity and profit. Some wars are noble. World War II was noble. But this one is not. Your observations reveal nothing of justice — only death, mangled bodies in the dubious service of profiteering and power-grabs, especially by one uniquely unworthy star who “reaps the financial rewards.” Along these lines, my favorite of the three poems is the somewhat less visceral pantoum, The Core of War. I always find pantoums to be an odd poetic form – Malaysian in origin but – at least to me — no less comfortable in English than a rondeau. The beauty of the pantoum is the way the repetends suggest a cyclic nature to the theme. But there is also a logical aspect to this form, almost as if the various stanzas were syllogisms. The words turn about in an almost puzzle-like fashion and get reused with different meanings in each stanza, almost like the cubes in a Rubik’s cube. It takes a really skilled poet to make it mean something and you take it to the limit as you explore the nefarious doings of “the trickster” for whom “constant conflict pays.” Specifically, you bring the reader on a journey from “The trickster arms and charms both sides” to the end “The trickster arms and harms both sides.” The transformation from “charm” to “harm” here is skillful, meaningful and subtle — like the acts of the trickster himself. I can visualize so many dreadful public figures in this “trickster” role. Isn’t that awful? Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant March 11, 2025 Brian, thank you so very much for your close and insightful reading. I thoroughly appreciate your eye for the finer details. I too have noticed that the former love-and-peace promotors are now baying for war with no mention of the trail of devastation the Western world has left behind in the Middle East. I’m baffled. As far as the choice of Odin is concerned, he was the first figure who sprung to mind. I always see him when war is mentioned. I think it’s my British roots – the Vikings have an awful lot to answer for as far as the Anglo-Saxons are concerned. Your observations on “Contesting Etiquette” are spot on. It was inspired by the sheer ignorance concerning the history behind the headlines and how opinion pieces alone tug at the heartstrings and… voila – a new idol is born. The history books don’t matter when it comes to drawing a fair conclusion. The screaming headlines and media spotlight guides our collective conscience all the way to the bank, where we the people pay the puppeteers. The “star” of my poem is indeed “emblematic of many who have used war as a tool of vanity”, and I just love the soft-boiled-egg analogy. I am growing to appreciate Swift more and more as I grow older and dumber. Brian, I have grown to love the pantoum form. Initially I found it tricky, but as you say so eloquently: “The beauty of the pantoum is the way the repetends suggest a cyclic nature to the theme.” – and gosh the cyclic nature of war begged for a pantoum. When I choose a form to showcase a theme… and it works, I couldn’t be happier. And for me, this one did that. I wrote it with pain in my heart and a sense of urgency hoping my despair would rub off a little. It pays to do personal research instead of relying on opinion pieces, and to think long and hard before promoting endless horror from the comfort of the sofa. Willful ignorance is the enemy of those suffering. The trickster has a lot to answer for and it’s our job to call all those grinning tricksters out, and yes, there’s a lot of them. Brian – as ever, I have gained from our exchange. Thank you! Reply
Jeff Eardley March 11, 2025 Susan, this is just about as good as poetry can get. I was reminded of the Bob Dylan song, “Masters of War” which was nailing this subject on the head decades ago. I was filled with horror last week when I read that North Korean soldiers, laying down their lives for Putin, are told that if they are captured or surrender, their families will be executed. Three of your best today. Thank you. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant March 11, 2025 Jeff, it’s always lovely to chat with you. It’s a pity the subject is so darn grim. Yes, those hiding behind walls and desks and profiting from death have an awful lot to answer for. My heart aches for all those snatched by the jaws of war in the name of riches for the growing-ever-richer. Jeff, thank you. Reply
C.B. Anderson March 11, 2025 I like a good war … or at least a good war movie. But I hate a bad war and I hate warmongers in the Federal Government who want to keep it going on forever. Last I heard, Trump et al. are getting close to an end-game. Better sooner than later. Reply
Mary Jane Myers March 12, 2025 Susan An accomplished trio (with brio!) Your three poems display the full power of formal traditional forms. The poems are timeless—they could refer to any war, any year. Yet a contemporary audience immediately thinks of the ongoing nightmare in Ukraine. The poems are I think more powerful than if there were exact references to any actual contemporary event. Pantoum: this form is interesting to work with—it always has an incantatory flavor. In this case, because it’s a war theme, the incantation becomes almost hallucinatory. The iambic tetrameter lines are short and memorable. The use of consonantal and assonantal “wordplay” is strong: charms and arms; crimson riches rocket in; wicked win; revels in his devilry; battle’s blaze; pain of constant conflict pays; charms and harms. Your change to the last line is significant: arms both sides Line– 1; harms both sides– line 20. Shakespearean Sonnet: Perfect iambic pentameter (brava!), and the couplet “summary” is a call to action: that the lauded name should be hauled through mud. Epigram: 4 lines iambic pentameter; perfect cross-rhymes. This is “punchy” as epigrams are meant to be. Strong use of “wordplay” consonance and assonance: nasty stance; squawking hawks; crooks grow rich/cracks his whip. Bravissima! Mary Jane Reply
