How to Read Poetry 101: Looking at the Fine Print

Poems, in my opinion, are often like foggy pieces of glass. They’re put in front of us and, all too often, we don’t quite understand what we’re looking at. At times, the fog is a light mist that can be easily scrubbed away with a little bit of effort. However, it is often the case with myself that the glass is so grimy I need twenty bottles of Windex and a Sham-wow to comprehend what’s on the other side. Such was the case when I first looked at “Base Details” by Siegfried Sassoon. Like any good reader of poetry, my initial instinct was to read this out loud. It sounded like nonsense at first, but after evaluating every minute detail, as infinitesimal as they seemed, a light bulb finally began to flicker in my head! 

"Base Details" by Siegfried Sassoon

IF I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You’d see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,	5
Reading the Roll of Honour. ‘Poor young chap,’
I’d say—‘I used to know his father well;
Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.’
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed.	10

The poem starts out with some dazzling visual imagery as the speaker puts him/herself into the shoes of someone who is “fierce, and bald, and short of breath” (Sassoon 1). Who could this revolting person be? The next line left me scratching my head for a while as I learned that this mystery person had “scarlet Majors and the Base” (Sassoon 2). Just the fact that the words “majors” and “base” were capitalized led me to believe they were significant. After reading the entire piece over and over again, I began to pick up on a war/militaristic theme. This led me to infer that “scarlet Majors at the Base” was some sort of declaration of authority. Alright, well what does this speaker have against authority figures in the military? Based off of his/her negative visual imagery, we can infer as an audience that he/she is trying to get some sort of critical message across. In line five, we’re given the impression that these authority figures are pretty well off as they’re “Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel” (Sassoon 5). So, offensive number one is that this person is well off and the description of his/her “puffy petulant face” suggests that it’s in a state of gluttony (Sassoon 4). We also learn that this figure of authority “speed[s] glum heroes up the line to death” (Sassoon 3). Isn’t that a pretty picture? At this point, the author has already painted in our heads the picture of a presumably fat man/woman of power living comfortably in a fancy hotel whilst sending off brave men to fight their wars. That’s quite a statement to fit within five lines of poetry! All that’s needed now is the cherry on top, the icing on the cake. Looking at the last five lines of the poem, it is clear that the speaker is highlighting the ignorance and incompetence of this figure of power as he/she casually reads of a soldier’s death in the “Roll of Honour” as if the milkman down the street had just passed away (Sassoon 6). He/she states “‘I used to know his father well…’” and uses that as they’re only feeling of remorse towards this man’s death (Sassoon 7). To top it all off, at the end of the day, this revolting figure of power and authority would “toddle safely home and die—in bed” (Sassoon 10). As if it hadn’t already been enough, the speaker punches out that final pos t that while this man/woman hides idly behind his/her power, soldiers are dying on the front.

The title, of course, cannot be forgotten either. "Base" can be another word for dull or unimportant. Perhaps the speaker was trying to convey how leaders of the military view their thousands of soldiers. If one life was lost, is it really that much of a loss to them? Perhaps to these figures of power, it's nothing but fine print that they can easily afford to ignore.