}
The poppy
‘Poppies whose roots are in man’s veins’
From Break of Day in the Trenches a poem by Isaac Rosenberg, 1916
In the winter French battlefields were muddy swamps. In the summer they were fields of wild flowers. Soldiers described the display of red poppies in their letters home, and picked bunches to put in makeshift vases in their billets.
To soldiers and to those at home, the red of the poppy suggested the blood spilt on the battlefield, as though the flowers grew from the blood. Through poems such as Break of Day in the Trenches by Bristol-born Isaac Rosenberg, and In Flanders Fields by Canadian Major John McCrae, the corn poppy came to symbolise the war and the war dead.
Two American women independently proposed the poppy as an emblem of the war dead, to raise money for ex-soldiers. In France, Anna Guérin began making silk poppies, giving employment to war widows in northern France, and selling the poppies to ex-soldiers’ organisations. In Britain, Earl Haig adopted Guérin’s poppy for the new British Legion to support ex-servicemen.
In the winter French battlefields were muddy swamps. In the summer they were fields of wild flowers. Soldiers described the display of red poppies in their letters home, and picked bunches to put in makeshift vases in their billets.
To soldiers and to those at home, the red of the poppy suggested the blood spilt on the battlefield, as though the flowers grew from the blood. Through poems such as Break of Day in the Trenches by Bristol-born Isaac Rosenberg, and In Flanders Fields by Canadian Major John McCrae, the corn poppy came to symbolise the war and the war dead.
Two American women independently proposed the poppy as an emblem of the war dead, to raise money for ex-soldiers. In France, Anna Guérin began making silk poppies, giving employment to war widows in northern France, and selling the poppies to ex-soldiers’ organisations. In Britain, Earl Haig adopted Guérin’s poppy for the new British Legion to support ex-servicemen.