The Marching Bands

More about the book

Significant events of the twentieth century, be they public and tragic or private and joyful, have inspired Desmond Graham to write this moving collection. The book features a number of elegies to the great poets of both world wars, including Wilfred Owen, Edward Thomas, Ivor Gurney and Keith Douglas. These poems are evocative of the terrible atmosphere of wartime. Also here are speculative biographical pieces on painters and their families. An 'Old Turner' rows 'toothless towards Battersea', Monet surveys the famous water-lilies, and Rembrandt's son Titus, reputedly 'also a painter' - but none of whose work survives - captures on canvas his own short life. The final section of the book is a group of charming poems chronicling the birth and first years of the life of the poet's daughter, Milena.