Poetry and the family

Angela France

A good evening on Tuesday at Writers in the Brewery in Cirencester, now in the cafe rather than the theatre, which has rather more comfortable seats! A great improvement. The guest reader this month was Angela France, who teaches poetry at the University of Gloucestershire and also runs Buzzwords, the monthly poetry evening at the Exmouth Arms here in Cheltenham. A lot of her poetry centres on her family history but takes a universal perspective on it and her comments certainly inspired me to start thinking more broadly around the issues brought up in my own family research and writing.

Much of my reading this week has been of poetry suitable for funerals and thanksgiving services as we prepare to say our goodbyes to a much loved family member. Especially in his later years, family became everything to him and I think the poem I have chosen to read at his funeral reflects that. It was written by Leo Marks, who was not actually a poet but was responsible for agents dropped into occupied territories in the Second World War as part of the Special Operations Executive. The poem was used in broadcasts to resistance movements and is sometimes referred to as "Code Poem For The French Resistance".

The Life That I Have

The life that I have

is all that I have,

and the life that I have

is yours.

The love that I have

of the life that I have

is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have,

a rest I shall have,

yet death will be but a pause

for the peace of my years

in the long green grass

will be yours and yours and yours.

Leo Marks.

It may not be "great" poetry but what better words to express the handing on of life to children and grandchildren?