S! All,

 

For Armistice Day, I thought I'd share this video:

 

The writer and reader, Dave Sullivan, is a friend of mine; he's been researching the life and death of Michael Francis Kelly as part of his Master's degree, and since Dave is also an actor, he put some of his research into an imagined monologue by Kelly. This reading was filmed last summer, at the Beaumont Hamel memorial for the Newfoundland Regiment, which was almost annihilated on 1 July 1916 close to the site of the memorial (at one point, you can see Dave gesture over his shoulder towards Hawthorn Ridge, the site of the German machine guns which tore the regiment to pieces, despite the fact that the ridge was mined and supposedly destroyed just before the attack).

 

S!

 

Maus

Thank you so much for sharing that video. Dave Sullivan did a wonderful job interpreting Michael Kelly's words.

 

In honor of Armistice Day, one of my favorite poems:

 

An Irish Airman foresees his Death, by W.B. Yeats

 

I KNOW that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate

Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,

My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,

No likely end could bring them loss

Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,

A lonely impulse of delight

Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.