Trench Ballads, and Other Verses

Inside this modest volume lies a soldier’s raw voice from the Western Front. Compiled from forty poems penned in the mud‑filled trenches of France, the verses draw directly on the author’s own service as a private in the 16th Infantry. The collection is organized into three sections—front‑line ballads, poems written before America entered the war, and a handful of more general reflections—offering a layered portrait of the era.

The poems move from the bleak landscape of No‑Man’s‑Land and the endless lines of barbed‑wire to moments of fragile camaraderie, the sting of wounded bodies in field hospitals, and the tentative hope of returning home. Written on scraps of paper and envelopes, the language is spare yet vivid, refusing romanticized heroics in favor of honest observation. Listeners will hear the rhythm of marching boots, the hush of night watches, and the lingering echo of a generation’s sacrifice.