I chose to read May, 1915 by Charlotte Mew because I think it provides an important female perspective of the war and I think it utilizes natural imagery in an interesting way. In the informational blurb about Mew in our poetry anthology, it is mentioned that she was unmarried at the time of the war and all of her brothers had died prior to it. She had no relation to any soldiers, yet the war still had a huge impact on her life. I am glad that her work was chosen for this anthology, because while war narratives typically exclude women anyway, when women are featured in them it is often only because of their personal relationships to soldiers. We may often hear of a poor soldier’s wife, but not of an unmarried, childless woman like Mew. Something we have devoted ourselves to throughout this course is acknowledging that the war affected literally everyone and there are so many important perspectives to be aware of from combatants, non-combatants, and people of different genders, races, and social backgrounds. There is no singular war experience and all may be treated with equal significance. So, I chose Mew’s short, naturalistic poem. References to nature and Mother Earth are familiar to us in works about the Great War, and usually the Earth is depicted as a source of safety and stability. In this poem, I feel like there is some doubt in the stability of nature despite the constant reassurance that spring will come again and that the natural world will heal. If natural healing is a “divine surprise”, there must be some doubt that it will always occur. I get the sense that taking comfort in nature is not quite enough at this point, when the war has upended so much. When looking at a war-torn landscape, it is hard to have faith in Mother Nature. The fact that the title of this poem is a date relatively early in the war is also troubling, because if the poem is about hoping (however futilely) that nature will heal the destruction of war, there are many more destructive years to come before that hope comes to fruition.