Posted in Rituals

Anzac Day

Posted on by tq1695

 

April 25 –  Anzac day New Zealand’s equivalent of Memorial Day or Armistice Day. The occasion on which those who made the ultimate sacrifice are celebrated, remembered and thanked. Long ago now, April 25, 1915, it began when Australian and New Zealand ( Anzac) forces landed at dawn on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Landed to suffering, privation, misery, ambush and death. Many young men signed up for adventure, the reality was brutally  different, the contrast captured so well by  Eric Bogel’s, The Band Played Waltzing Matilda – a moving and illuminating song – included as a link below.

Anzac day began during World War I a conflict which spawned a sub, almost full genre of poetry – war poems – none better than Ted Hughes’s Six Young Men. The rules of copyright do not permit it to be posted on Orphaned Islands (Un) poetry’s website. However, a Google search will allow any reader to find it quite quickly – well worth reading.

The Pogues – The band played waltzing matilda – YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZqN1glz4JY

 

 

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Author:

Most of my life has been spent on the bench, occasionally called into the game by extravagance or attenuation. Waiting has turned a loner into a recorder - nondescript and inconsequential, more not noticed than overlooked - the non-vantage point of children not yet considered old enough to understand. Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry is a lifetime of picking anecdotes up and not throwing them away. Stories collected like odds and ends placed in a box in the basement, the garage, the garden shed - uncertain as to what their use might be but knowing that one day there might be one.