Poppy appeal

As Remembrance Sunday draws closer and we pin poppies to our coats, we can also see them adorning the jackets of books. This powerful symbol of remembrance features on the covers of many books about the First World War, which tend to be put on display at this time of year.

The inspiration behind the remembrance poppy is John McCrae’s 1915 poem, which begins ‘In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row’. The poppies are linked to the crosses of the graves, as though each poppy marks the place of a fallen soldier. They seem flimsy and delicate, ‘blow’ing in the wind, but in the final verse, ‘blow’ is replaced with the more optimistic ‘grow’. McCrae makes poppies at once a symbol of mourning and of hope, a dual meaning which is also captured in their red colour, suggesting the blood of fallen soldiers transformed into a thing of natural beauty.