Under the Same Fire - Black War Poets: An Anthology of Diverse Voices from Battlefield and Homefront

The First World War was fought across nations and continents-but its soldiers, workers and families lived under the same fire.Under the Same Fire brings together 137 poems and military voices by Black writers from across three centuries. Centred on the First World War, this wide-ranging anthology follows soldiers, labour battalions, industrial workers, grieving families and returning veterans through enlistment, camp life, combat, sacrifice, remembrance and the struggle for equality after service.Alongside the vivid camp-life poems of Walter E. Seward are works by Phillis Wheatley, Claude McKay, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, W. E. B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Lucian B. Watkins and many others. Voices from Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas broaden the collection beyond the familiar boundaries of English-language war poetry.Thirty works originally composed in French, Spanish, Portuguese, isiXhosa, isiZulu and Somali are presented with facing English translations. Together, they illuminate colonial warfare, revolution, resistance, military service and the racial realities that shaped Black participation in war.Recovering poetry scattered across newspapers, broadsides, small collections and oral traditions, Under the Same Fire restores an overlooked body of writing to the history of war poetry-and reveals how courage on the battlefield was so often followed by injustice at home.