Overview

A New Way of Seeing considers the poetry of five writers—Louis Simpson, Keith Douglas, Richard Hugo, Howard Nemerov, and Randall Jarrell—whose work draws on their activities as soldiers in World War II. Basing his examination on extensive primary-source research, Michael Sarnowski identifies distance, both literal and figurative, and traumatic memory as two interconnected elements of how these poets internalized the war and made sense of the events they witnessed. The book is structured on a gradient related to each poet's proximity to combat, as the chapters in turn focus on an infantryman (Simpson), a tank commander (Douglas), a bombardier (Hugo), a pilot (Nemerov), and a stateside flight instructor (Jarrell). Sarnowski relies on a wealth of archival material overlooked by previous scholarship, including poem drafts, correspondence, flight logs, and personal belongings. The conclusion revisits notions of legacy and representation by assessing factors that contributed to the early labeling of World War II soldiers as a ""Silent Generation,"" in contrast to the outpouring of poetry published during and following the First World War. By exploring how poets processed their wartime experiences, A New Way of Seeing offers a stark reminder of why it remains vital to recognize the physical, mental, and psychological consequences endured by veterans.

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9780807183991

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Reviews

""A New Way of Seeing is a well-researched and compelling defense of the poets of World War II. It is everything that their subtle and stylistically diverse poems deserve. With empathetic scrutiny, Michael Sarnowski proves that acknowledging this generation's traumatic vision enriches our understanding of the entire global conflict that affected millions and reshaped the world.""--Diederik Oostdijk, author of Among the Nightmare Fighters: American Poets of World War II ""With his thorough, thoughtful, and meticulous study of five World War II poets, Sarnowski adroitly fills a major gap in English and American literary scholarship. A fascinating and important contribution to understanding how war experience gets translated onto poetry.""--Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet, author of Combat Death in Contemporary American Culture: Popular Cultural Conceptions of War since World War II

Author Information

Michael Sarnowski is a writer and educator who has taught at universities in the U.S. and the U.K. Originally from Rochester, New York, he lives in Liverpool, England.

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