Chaos of the Night: Women's Poetry and Verse of the Second World War Book

"Unshaken world!/Another day of light/After the human/Chaos of the night." With these words—a vivid mingling of hope and despair—Frances Cornford protested against the terrible brutality of war. Here, in a collection of women's poetry from the Second World War, 87 poets record the devastating upheavals it caused with its attendant partings, separations, and bereavements. Whether as civilians or as auxiliary servicewomen, these women write of the fear of air attacks, of children's response to evacuation, and of their horror of Nazi persecution. But they convey too the sweet expectation of peace, of reunion, and rebirth. Among the poets, some known and many less known, are Phyllis Shand Allfrey, Elaine Feinstein, F. Tennyson Jesse, Naomi Mitchison, Edith Sitwell, Stevie Smith, and Sylvia Townsend Warner.