Twenty poems, four groups Civil war haiku poems
The poems below are arranged by ground rather than by date, because that is how a soldier's war was actually shaped: you were in camp, then you were in the field, then you were in a hospital or a stockade or on the road home. Each poem carries a note naming the fact it rests on, so that nothing here has to be taken on trust.
Twenty poems Written for this collection None of these is a soldier's own verse.
How the four groups differ
Read the table first
| Group | Poems | Season most used | Ground it leans on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enlistment and camp | 5 | Spring, then deep winter | Rations, drill, bugle calls, the mail |
| The field | 6 | Summer and early autumn | Orders, ground, weather, artillery |
| Hospital and prison | 4 | Summer | Surgery, fever, capture, the stockade |
| After | 5 | Spring | Surrender, mourning, the return home |
Wide table: scroll sideways to read it all.
All twenty poems
Enlistment and camp Five poems
courthouse bell, April
Written for this collection. Ground: volunteer companies were raised locally in 1861, very often at the county courthouse.
the recruiting sergeant's table
set out in the shade
first night in camp
Written for this collection. Ground: camp life ran on bugle calls, from reveille at dawn to tattoo and taps at night.
a hundred men learning
one bugle call
hardtack in coffee
Written for this collection. Ground: hardtack was soaked in coffee to be edible at all. Soldiers called the infested biscuit worm castles.
softening long enough
to name the weevils
winter quarters
Written for this collection. Ground: armies built log huts with mud and stick chimneys, often topped with an empty barrel, for the winter camps.
a chimney of mud and sticks
smoking the wrong way
mail call, no name
Written for this collection. Ground: letters were commonly read aloud, and read for men who could not read.
he reads the man beside him
a letter twice
The field Six poems
before the order
Written for this collection. Ground: infantry formed and dressed ranks in close order before an advance.
the whole line dressing its ranks
like men late for church
canister at forty yards
Written for this collection. Ground: canister turned a cannon into a shotgun at short range; rail fences were the commonest cover on that ground.
the fence rails
going down together
smoke lifts a little
Written for this collection. Ground: regimental colours marked the line of advance and drew the heaviest fire.
the flag is further forward
than the men
afternoon, no wind
Written for this collection. Ground: wounded men of both armies lay on the same ground between the lines for hours.
the wounded calling for water
in two accents
after the volley
Written for this collection. Ground: the Wheatfield at Gettysburg changed hands repeatedly on 02/07/1863.
a whole field of wheat
laid the wrong way
night on the field
Written for this collection. Ground: stretcher parties worked after dark, two men to a lantern.
lanterns moving by twos
stopping, stopping
Hospital and prison Four poems
field hospital
Written for this collection. Ground: churches, barns and houses near a battlefield were taken over as hospitals within hours.
the church pews carried out
to make room
surgeon's lantern
Written for this collection. Ground: amputation was the standard treatment for a shattered limb, and it saved lives.
the shadow of the saw
longer than the saw
fever ward in June
Written for this collection. Ground: disease killed roughly two soldiers for every one killed in action.
someone keeps the flies moving
and nothing else
stockade at noon
Written for this collection. Ground: at Camp Sumter, better known as Andersonville, a light rail fence inside the stockade marked the dead line. Prisoners who crossed it were shot.
the dead line marked
by a single rail
After Five poems
stacked arms at noon
Written for this collection. Ground: the formal surrender ceremony at Appomattox Court House took place on 12/04/1865, three days after the surrender itself.
the sound of it heard
a half mile off
empty sleeve
Written for this collection. Ground: tens of thousands of men came home after amputation; several states paid for artificial limbs.
he learns to shave again
left handed
the widow's crape
Written for this collection. Ground: mourning dress was governed by strict custom, with black crape worn for a fixed period.
fading to the colour
of the wallpaper
first Decoration Day
Written for this collection. Ground: 30/05/1868, the first observance ordered nationally. A very large share of Civil War graves were marked unknown.
the graves get flowers
before they get names
the war ends twice
Written for this collection. Ground: the surrenders ran from April into June 1865; for most families the war ended when a particular man came home, or did not.
once in the papers
once in the kitchen
How to read one of these
Three passes
A haiku gives up almost nothing on a first reading, which is why people so often decide they do not like haiku. Three passes usually settles it.
- Read it for the picture. What can you actually see? If you can see nothing, the poem has failed and it is not your fault.
- Find the cut. Almost every one of these breaks in two. Locate the join and ask what the two halves do to each other.
- Read the ground note, then read the poem again. The fact is not decoration. In a war poem it is the whole difference between an image and a pose.
The mechanics of all this, including what a cut is and why the count of five, seven, five is a translation problem rather than a rule, are set out on the page about the form.