Poem: ‘Calling all the Heroes’ by Lauren Williams

Commissioned for the Birmingham World War One commemoration on August 3 2014 Lauren Williams, Birmingham Young Poet Laureate 2013-2014, imagined what life might have been like for young people at the outbreak of the First World War

Calling all the Heroes

Calling all the Hero’s those with lack of experience who are full of spirit

We need you to win the type of fight that isn’t won by sheer size and strength of a fist

But the fierceness of a beating heart

We need fathers and brothers and sons to fire the guns and shoot with the passion of a bleeding nation,

We need Mothers and sisters and daughters to equally add their contributions to the war effort

Even the small things make the biggest difference.

And when something is called great, we can understand that there were tiny things making up its foundation.

 

I am remembering the time before this war was officially known as great

The time where the youth were praised for being strong and enthusiastic

Because the great war was won by their effort.

I am reflecting on a time of togetherness.

Where communities had intimacy because they were made up of more than neighbours,

But people who believed in each other and worked towards greatness together.

And at this time the only enemies were the people who weren’t your allies

Allies were the friends who you trusted not only with your life but your country.

Our country that was made up of soldiers, in the shops and schools and factories,

Ordinary jobs adding up to equal something extraordinary.

 

1914 I’m young and naive, I still have dreams of world peace without violence.

War breaks out and to me it’s sudden.

The sudden burst of information after being kept in the dark.

Like the sudden burst of flames after the sirens have been sounded and after we are sheltered and an explosion is heard.

I am either too young to understand or just young enough for my innocence to be preserved.

But we couldn’t be kept in the dark forever so nightmares eventually became reality

And All the news we heard on the radio was indecisive.

It was this time where people believed that it would be quick and simple

Because we are the nation made of heroes.

 

The great news we heard on the radio

Which was only great within the moment it was being told,

because the next day it was merely old.

The great secret where I am either too immature to stay optimistic or too young to realise danger

The Great War where great decisions were made that greatly effected the future

The world war that brought countries together under the pressure of life or death ultimatums

The heroic battle where ordinary people went away with Nothing and returned with a legacy

The optimistic beginnings and hopes for winning,

the brief glimpse of pessimism when some were lost

and the recurring thought that kept us going,

I think one day this will all be a memory and we will be the legends being remembered.

Especially on a day like today where we remember the heroes who were called into battle.

 

Lauren Williams

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