Review of “A Cap of Horror: First World War poetry by female Nurses and Carers” - an anthology by Leo Van Bergen (Uitgeverij dt (duidelijke taal), Nijmegen, 2020), with illustrations by Irma Jansen. Dutch title: “Een Kap Van Afschuw”

For this innovative anthology Leo Van Bergan selected poems by seventeen female WW1 poets who wrote in English and translated them into Dutch.  The resulting book is in two halves, which I think is a brilliant idea – in one side are the English poems, turn it over and you get the Dutch translations.    Although Dutch is not one of ‘my’ languages, I have spent time in Dutch-speaking countries and am familiar with the language.  As I studied French, German and Italian in my youth, I am interested in all languages and I feel that through learning other languages we can communicate better and communication is surely the key to a peaceful existence. 

I have researched most of the poets included in this anthology and all of them are on the list I have complied so far – see http://femalewarpoets.blogspot.com/p/female-poets-of-first-world-war-revised.html.

However, there was one poet I had not yet researched, so I am extremely grateful to Leo for the chance to research Margaret Helen Florine RN, an American nurse and poet. 

The poets included in Leo’s anthology are:  Enid Bagnold, Mary Borden, Lillian Bowes-Lyon, Vera Brittain, May Wedderburn-Cannan, Eva Dobell, Margaret Helen Florine, Rosaleen Graves, Winifred Mary Letts, Rose Macaulay, Nina Mardel, Carola Oman, Jessie Pope, May Sinclair, Millicent Sutherland, Alberta Vickridge and M. Winifred Wedgwood.  Apart from the poems there is a Foreword in two parts by Leo and by Margo van Mol, a Dutch intensive care nurse and psychologist at Erasmus MC Rotterdam, and a Preface by Sophie de Schaepdrijver, Prefossor of Modern European History at Pennsylvania State University. Leo has also written a comprehensive Introduction to his selection.  Also included are brief biographies of the poets. 

This is a book that will be of great interest to those who appreciate poetry and those who are interested in the First World War – both English and Dutch speakers – as well as to language students.

The wonderful illustrations by Irma Jansen highlight the intensity of the emotions expressed in the poems Leo has selected.

Leo Van Bergen is a Dutch Medical Historian who has written several books about health and the First World War. 

Lucy London, December 2020