Uploaded April 2014 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Here's a virtual movie of the British the British World War Two Soldiersoldier poet Poet Keith Douglas (1920 - 1944) reading his exquisite metaphysical poem "How to Kill" The poem describes how a sniper lines up his target with his sight and kills like a mosquito. Douglas was a career soldier himself and had seen considerable action in Egypt as a tank commander and in Normandy where he himself was killed in 1944 aged just 24 by an almost invisible fragment from a shell blast.
Keith Douglas was the son of a British army officer had studied literature at Oxford university under the ww1 poet Edmund Blunden he is deservedly remembered for his almost metaphysical style in which he often described graphicaly the horrors of war and is among my favourite poets and one I have a great feeling of affinity with. In this wonderful sad touching poem "How to Kill" His phrase "How easy it is to make a ghost" very much encapsulates the message in this poem of how a mosquito like bullet can so easily take away a life.Alas he knew this all to well Keith Douglas began to publish his verse in periodicals in the 1930s, while he was still studying at Oxford; however, the only volume to be published in his lifetime was 'Selected Poems' (1943). He was killed in Normandy. His reputation rests mainly on his war poetry, particularly that depicting the desert warfare he experienced in North Africa. The unquiet intensity of this piece is reminiscent of that found in some Elizabethan 'metaphysical' poetry. Keith Douglas was born in Kent, and educated at Oxford University under the tutorship of poet Edward Blunden, before enlisting with the British Army when World War II broke out. He is the most famous English poet of that war, although he began publishing his work at the age of 16. His verse is precise, unsentimental and at times chilling, in its treatment of desire and sexuality as well as in its pervasive obsession with death and the relation of death to writing. Douglas was killed in Normandy, having also written about his involvement in the war in North Africa, his slim but intensely powerful corpus concluded at an early age. His work began to receive the acclaim it deserves only when Ted Hughes, a great admirer, edited and introduced a collection in 1964 (Selected Poems). See also the more recent Complete Poems (ed. Desmond Graham; 1978).
Kind Regards
Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 2014
How to Kil......
Under the parabola of a ball, a child turning into a man, I looked into the air too long. The ball fell in my hand, it sang in the closed fist: Open Open Behold a gift designed to kill. Now in my dial of glass appears the soldier who is going to die. He smiles, and moves about in ways his mother knows, habits of his. The wires touch his face: I cry NOW. Death, like a familiar, hears and look, has made a man of dust of a man of flesh. This sorcery I do. Being damned, I am amused to see the centre of love diffused and the wave of love travel into vacancy. How easy it is to make a ghost. The weightless mosquito touches her tiny shadow on the stone, and with how like, how infinite a lightness, man and shadow meet. They fuse. A shadow is a man when the mosquito death approaches
Here's a virtual movie of the British the British World War Two Soldiersoldier poet Poet Keith Douglas (1920 - 1944) reading his exquisite metaphysical poem "How to Kill" The poem describes how a sniper lines up his target with his sight and kills like a mosquito. Douglas was a career soldier himself and had seen considerable action in Egypt as a tank commander and in Normandy where he himself was killed in 1944 aged just 24 by an almost invisible fragment from a shell blast.
Keith Douglas was the son of a British army officer had studied literature at Oxford university under the ww1 poet Edmund Blunden he is deservedly remembered for his almost metaphysical style in which he often described graphicaly the horrors of war and is among my favourite poets and one I have a great feeling of affinity with. In this wonderful sad touching poem "How to Kill" His phrase "How easy it is to make a ghost" very much encapsulates the message in this poem of how a mosquito like bullet can so easily take away a life.Alas he knew this all to well Keith Douglas began to publish his verse in periodicals in the 1930s, while he was still studying at Oxford; however, the only volume to be published in his lifetime was 'Selected Poems' (1943). He was killed in Normandy. His reputation rests mainly on his war poetry, particularly that depicting the desert warfare he experienced in North Africa. The unquiet intensity of this piece is reminiscent of that found in some Elizabethan 'metaphysical' poetry. Keith Douglas was born in Kent, and educated at Oxford University under the tutorship of poet Edward Blunden, before enlisting with the British Army when World War II broke out. He is the most famous English poet of that war, although he began publishing his work at the age of 16. His verse is precise, unsentimental and at times chilling, in its treatment of desire and sexuality as well as in its pervasive obsession with death and the relation of death to writing. Douglas was killed in Normandy, having also written about his involvement in the war in North Africa, his slim but intensely powerful corpus concluded at an early age. His work began to receive the acclaim it deserves only when Ted Hughes, a great admirer, edited and introduced a collection in 1964 (Selected Poems). See also the more recent Complete Poems (ed. Desmond Graham; 1978).
Kind Regards
Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 2014
How to Kil......
Under the parabola of a ball, a child turning into a man, I looked into the air too long. The ball fell in my hand, it sang in the closed fist: Open Open Behold a gift designed to kill. Now in my dial of glass appears the soldier who is going to die. He smiles, and moves about in ways his mother knows, habits of his. The wires touch his face: I cry NOW. Death, like a familiar, hears and look, has made a man of dust of a man of flesh. This sorcery I do. Being damned, I am amused to see the centre of love diffused and the wave of love travel into vacancy. How easy it is to make a ghost. The weightless mosquito touches her tiny shadow on the stone, and with how like, how infinite a lightness, man and shadow meet. They fuse. A shadow is a man when the mosquito death approaches
