In Another World

My last image of action was a leap into enemy fire

Now lying helplessly amidst the bodies of my brothers

I thought back to my peaceful England

Where my loved ones will wait 

For my return forever

My mother, kind and gentle

My beloved, fierce and beautiful

What I could have been,

A father of two children

Vanished in an instance 

To be replaced by my current state

A mutilated, drained body

Lying unknown and uncared for

Torso shredded with shrapnel and bullets

Blood spraying magnificently

Like a fountain of lonesome pain and unfulfilled wishes

I remembered the small German town where I grew up

The pride of my family the day I enlisted 

To serve the wishes of the greatest empire, the Third Reich

My mother’s warm embraces, tender kisses provided comfort

During my brutal training and lonely nights away

My platoon always preparing for that inevitable surprise

A desperate rush up the shoreline

From primitive metal tubs

The unyielding rain of bullets from sky and sea

Forced the river to flow red again

Upon seeing blood 

All my training gave way to an unyielding film of blackness

As I lay on the foreign unwelcoming sand

With my body so distorted I did not feel human

Confusion and fear and the regret of a misguided life

Were the last images my immature mind comprehended.

The two soldiers lying side-by-side

Two boys fighting a war for adults.

In another untroubled universe,

The two could have been friends.

Analysis 

“In Another World” is a first person poem that follows the lives of a young English and German soldier as they enter the brutality of war. As such, it includes perspectivism because it switches from the point of view of soldiers from two different sides. A notable theme of the story is that of narrative authority, paying respect to the various narrator. 

A prominent connection to modernism that is evident in the poem is Dadaism. For example, “...torso shredded with shrapnel and bullets, blood spraying magnificently,” portrays how dangerous war can be when out on the battlefield. Another modernism element that can be seen in “In Another World” is imagism. It is used to help the reader visualize what exactly the author is trying to describe. For instance, “ The unyielding rain of bullets from sky and sea forced the river to run red again.” In this scenario, the reader can see how battles during a war can change the surrounding of the battlefield. A “rain of bullets” really shows the intensity and ferocity of war and how a soldier has to adapt to his/her situation to stay alive in a place like that. 

The main theme that connects this poem to modernism is narrative authority, which is having more than one first person narrator. The poem starts off with the point of view of the British soldier, and moves to that of the German, finally concluding with an omniscient narrator. Soldiers from both sides had a different opinion about the war preceding their fateful battle. However, in the end, both died believing that they fought a pointless war, and had lived up to this single misguided moment in their lives. An anonymous narrator finishes off the poem, leaving a jarring and strange perspective with audience. Furthermore, from a political standpoint, this war was necessary in order to maintain balance in the world. All these different perspectives from various narrators just go to show how there was no universal truth at the time.