Harry Brown - Poems by the Famous Poet - All Poetry

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Harry Brown

1917-1986

Harry Peter McNab Brown, Jr. (April 30, 1917 – November 2, 1986) was an American poet, novelist and screenwriter. Born in Portland, Maine, he was educated at Harvard University, where he was friends with American poet, Robert Lowell. Brown dropped out of Harvard after his sophomore year to write poetry, work at Time magazine, and contributed to and became a sub-editor of The New Yorker.

Charles Scribner's Sons, of New York, published, in 1941, Brown's sustained unified poem, The Poem of Bunker Hill. The 158-page poetic epic won praise for its author's literary gifts as a poet and for the timely presentation of a vital topic - young men and war. Louise Bogan, from The New Yorker, was quoted, "Brown...possesses one of the most unmistakable poetic gifts which have recently appeared. Such a talent is not only basically good from the beginning but exhibits, also from the first, all the signs of virtuosity." Also published, early in that year, was Brown's first full-length book, The End of a Decade.

From the American Revolutionary warfare of The Poem of Bunker Hill, Harry Brown went directly to modern military operations. Brown enlisted in July 1941 in the US Army Corps of Engineers where he served at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. In 1942 he joined the staff of Yank magazine.

Brown wrote a column for the magazine under the nom de plume of "PFC Artie Greengroin" with a book published in 1945 of the columns under that title. Brown also wrote a play A Sound of Hunting that was produced on Broadway in 1946 starring Burt Lancaster and Frank Lovejoy. It was later filmed by Stanley Kramer under the title Eight Iron Men with a different cast of Bonar Colleano, Lee Marvin, and Arthur Franz in 1952, then was a 1961 television production with Peter Falk, Robert Lansing, and Sal Mineo directed by Seymour Robbie.

Brown wrote the novel A Walk in the Sun in 1944, which was made into a film with the same name in 1945. Director Lewis Milestone asked Brown to come to Hollywood as a screenwriter where he worked on films including Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), A Place in the Sun (1951) (winning an Oscar), his own Eight Iron Men, and Ocean's 11 (1960). Brown also was credited for his work on the first Ocean's 11 when it was remade in 2001.

Brown died from emphysema in Los Angeles in 1986.

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Parade

IT was a valorous music poured upon us
In that bright morning, and it was as though
The whole dour earth were moved by those sweet sound'
That played around our bodies and in motion
Conceived in us a love, but not of loving.
We might have been alone upon the sun.

We were then pierced by pride that was entrancing,
And stood there, made of sweat and steel and polish,
Each with his latest thought his last thought wounding,
A being in a being. The white music
Caught us in clouds of sound and swirled us skyward.
We were aware of nothing but our fires.

Then suddenly I lived beyond my breathing,
Dissolved the mists of music, saw beside me
Myself in such a stance, in various guises,
The eternal soldier; and the ground was stirring
Beneath my feet, and cities falling down.
And madmen played gold music in my ears.

Analysis (ai): This poem celebrates the transformative power of music during a parade. The music evokes a sense of grandeur and patriotism, inspiring the listeners to feel a profound sense of pride and unity.

The poem's imagery is striking and evocative, depicting the music as a "valorours" force that "poured upon us" and "pierced" the listeners. The music transforms the listeners, making them feel like they are "made of sweat and steel and polish" and "a being in a being."

The poem also reflects the historical context in which it was written, during World War II. The poem's themes of pride, unity, and sacrifice resonate with the experiences of soldiers during the war. The poem also captures the sense of uncertainty and fear that was prevalent during this time. The last lines of the poem, "And madmen played gold music in my ears," suggest a sense of unease and foreboding about the future.

Overall, this poem is a powerful and moving tribute to the transformative power of music.

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Harry Brown Follow

The Drill

I WATCH them on the drill field, the awkward and the grave,
The slow to action and the easily incensed,
The tall plowboys, the pale clerks, the fast men with a dollar,
The frightened adolescents, and those whose eyes explode
Like bombs or, like exhausted coals, lie dead.

They wheel and turn. The eternal convolutions
Of close-order drill Right Flank or To the Rear
Hold them as though, somnambulists, they moved
In the imposing caverns of some recurring dream
Where the only escape is to awake. But the night is very long.

The feet march on through the heavy summer morning.
The bodies are anonymous in their cotton khaki clothes,
And the faces, too, are all of a piece. Concealed at last from life
Are the weak chin, the nose too large, the forehead rutted and worn,
And the eyes too small, and the lips too fleshy or thin.

For the moment the accounts are all settled, the goods have all been sold,
The last delivery made, the last essay sent to the printer,
The elevator gone on its last strict voyage, the truck turned the last corner,
The last issue of bonds taken up, the last class attended,
The last row planted, the last payment made on the house.

The platoon moves past me on the field of summer,
The gray dust rising from the grassless ground,
Each man with his rifle resting on his shoulder,
Each man with his bayonet slapping his thigh, each man
With his eyes fixed on the man ahead, the corporals counting cadence.

The platoon moves past me into the mists of summer
And disappears into the darkness of our time,
A body of men, none known, none recognized,
Crossing my road for a little space. They go
Into the sun and the summer and the waiting war.

Seen for an instant and gone. Yet I felt between us
A bond not of country but of faith and love,
And I thought of an old phrase: "Whither thou goest,
I will go." And it seemed that the summer morning
Spoke out in a voice like song, that the air was full of singing.

And something said, "They come and they go away,
The patient and the small. They go away into the sun,
Their names are forgotten and their few works also,
But when they go they take their weapons with them,
And they leave behind them houses heavy with honor."

And I thought: It is enough. As I stood in a field
In Virginia in deep summer, while all around me
The trees dipped and the grass rustled, I heard the sound
Of platoons of men marching toward the crouching future,
And the voices of our approaching generations.

Analysis (ai): This poem, exploring the profound transformation of individuals as they endure military training, aligns with Harry Brown's other works in its depiction of human resilience and collective experience. Set against the backdrop of war, the poem depicts the mundane routines of drill as a profound change for these men, a moment where personal identities are masked by anonymity and replaced with a sense of unity.

The poem's use of military terminology and imagery, including references to "close-order drill," "rifles," and "bayonets," creates a vivid picture of the experience. However, the lack of specific details about the time period or location adds a timeless quality to the poem, making it applicable to any era of war.