C. Fox SmithBesprekingen

Smith cannot be said to have burnished her reputation with this thin (78 pp.) volume of poems published at the height of the Great War. The book is a collection of poems previously published in magazines, mainly relating to the merchant navy, with a few at the end relating to the Western Front. Perhaps the descriptions of rumoured atrocities by the enemy, and in one case the justification for the murder of a prisoner by the Allies, were popular themes at the time, but I hope we can now see them as standard demonisations by 'othering'. In all fairness, there are a few poems that are not overshadowed by the war, but too many leave a bad taste in the mouth. Urgh.