Searching for a female war poet in a graveyard in Rathcoole... For Sunday Miscellany on RTÉ Radio 1, listen to A Soft Day Poet by Mae Leonard above.
A friend called me the other day - "Will you meet me in a graveyard at Rathcoole." I paused and then he added - "I need your help. I'm trying to find a War Poet."
But which War Poet was he seeking in Rathcoole, of all places?
Curiosity took me there, and at the front gate my historian friend greeted me with a challenge – name some of the World War One Poets. No problem: Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, Rupert Brook, Wilfred Owen…
"Good," he said, "now name a woman war poet." And d’you know what? I was stumped.
"Did you ever hear of Winifred Mabel Letts?"
"Winifred Mabel Letts?" I repeated and shook my head foggily
"Did you ever hear the poem "A Soft Day?" And, of course I did. My mother used that very expression whenever she greeted people on the street on what she called "A soft day" always adding "Thank God".
I learned the poem in Primary School and it left a warm impression on me. I loved it from the very first time I heard it for its rhythm and imagery and even the sounds captured within it.
It was, indeed, a soft day, thank God, on the day my friend and I went searching in Rathcoole for the grave of Winifred Mabel Letts.
But who was she?
Listen to more from Sunday Miscellany here.
