I was somewhat discouraged upon reading the first poem, Fox-trot, which is about how boring the poet finds a ball put on by the local fox hunt. Is this going to be a book of twee verse about the 'First World Problems' of a privileged elite? I put the book to one side, wondering briefly if I should keep it, the inevitable conclusion to which was, "Yes".

Skip on a couple or four years, and I'm giving it another go. Same reaction to Fox-trot, but this time I persevere and, gradually, get into Graham's world. She's a bit of a sly one! What I thought was twee is social commentary, usually with a gentle (though sometimes not-so-gentle) barb. There's wistfulness and realism, fear and resiliance, humour, sarcasm and wit to be found here. Some nice parodies, too, of other poets, of which my favourite was her homage to Kipling's If. Her put-down of the Wiltshire town of Swindon comes unexpectedly at the end of a love poem. Graham does this a few times, with a twinkle in the eye that put me in mind of some of Morrissey's sardonic twist-in-the-tale lyrics.

The poems chart Graham's course through the English Home Front during WWII, and give glimpses into the lives and aspirations of others, mainly ordinary, middle-class people. She's often interested in the experience of social judgement, such as her feeling of guilt at having squandered money on a few minor luxuries, in the face of the perceived disapproval of fellow public transport travellers. She's good at contrasting the petty concerns of the rich and privileged (into whose ranks she was born) with the more vital and urgent concerns of the 'lower classes'.

It took me a while to appreciate the quality and content of Graham's poetry, but they were much more to my liking than those of Lord Dunsany's [War Poems, written at about the same time and which I found much too jingoistic and gung-ho for my taste. ( )

This collection compiles the poems written by Virginia Graham between 1938 and 1946. Most of them were published in Punch during the war years, and most of them deal, directly or indirectly, with World War II. I would characterize these poems as light verse; most of them are funny, a few of them are sad, and nearly all of them have a playfully ironic tone. This is not first-rate poetry, but some of the verses are quite good and moving. Here’s one of my favorites from the collection:

”Overture for Beginners”

Oh, mourn for those who had songs to sing
And have sung their songs to sleep;
For the muted reed and silent string,
For the muffled keyboard, weep;

For the poet, whose shadowy half-dreamed rhymes
Before they were born had died;
Oh, grieve for the crimson lakes and the limes,
And the brushes laid aside.

Theirs now the music of great machines,
The ballad of steel upon steel;
Theirs the poetry of submarines,
The art of the turning wheel.

Beauty they seek in the cannon’s roar,
Truth in the barrack square,
Grace in the steel-grey birds that soar,
Joy in the falling flare.

Pause to remember them now and then,
The workers at home and abroad,
Who fight in the faith that the brush and the pen
Are mightier than the sword.

This collection is especially interesting because the poems trace the progress of the war and the attitude of people on the home front. I like that Graham is able to laugh at herself and to be honest about what people at the time were really feeling. I would definitely recommend this book to people who are interested in World War II.