In this outstanding collection of linked poems, Paulin analyses the
events that led to the Second World War, seeking to keep the
memories - however painful and horrible - alive for a generation
increasingly jaded and cynical. As first-hand knowledge dies, could
these mistakes be repeated ad nauseam throughout our history? Yes,
says Paulin, and the need to keep asking why grows each year. The
poems are arranged in a loose chronological order beginning with
the ill-fated Treaty of Versailles, to studies of the men involved
in shaping Germany - and Europe's fate ('the Four'), through the
doomed Weimar Republic - 'the republic with a hole in its heart'
and the growing persecution of Jews: 'all the laws were in force/he
was a bank manager/not a house painter/- who would dare to
seize/him from his own dwelling?'. The poems grow into tales of
planning and eventually invasion, written with a simple violence
that dips into lyricism: 'it was like watching butterflies and
ballet dancers/caught in the blades of a mowing machine'. However,
Paulin's best verse is stark and plain, as in the two-line poem
'Ethiopia': 'i hope the organmen gas them to buggery/love evelyn'.
Paulin remains grounded in reality as he reflects on what he can do
to keep the memories and mistakes of the past alive, in 'Male Poet
Enlists', and most directly when commenting: 'who wonders if mere
dreams/can weigh in the record/for that matter poems?'. Only when
he is overtly political does his verse fall flat - such as the
condemnation of neutral Switzerland in 'Shirking the Camps' or the
dull numbers parading to numbing effect in 'Chancellor Hitler's
Speech'. Fortunately, these incidents are rare and most of the
poems are full of passionate verse that makes its point quietly but
firmly and intelligently. (Kirkus UK)
In The Invasion Handbook Tom Paulin sets out to recount the origins
of the Second World War. The result is a triumph of technique, a
simultaneous vision which proceeds by quotation and collage,
catalogue and caption, prose as well as verse - a myriad staging of
historical realities through the poet's intense and bitter scrutiny
of the particulars of time and place. The volume opens with the
Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919, which excluded Germany from the
community of nations, and with the answering but ill-fated attempt
of the Locarno Treaties of 1925 to restore the torn fabric of
Europe. It evokes Weimar culture, Hitler's rise to power and the
beginnings of the persecution of the Jews, and ends with the Battle
of Britain.
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