The desire of a poet for his writings to be in print is as natural as a painter needs to exhibit his work in public. - Vernon Scannell

All true poets are, of course, primarily concerned with artifact, the making of a verbal construct, a durable work of art.

The servicemen of the 1939 - 45 war could not be disillusioned because they held not illusions to start with, the most common mood found everywhere was one of dour resolution, skeptical, resigned.

Ther poetry of the second World War conveys the true feeling of those desolate and desperate days with an urgency and sense of truth that no other means of recording could emulate.