Unquiet Graves > Comments > "Review of Unquiet Graves Memorial Day Special"
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Commenter Profile
- Elizabeth Yeoman
- Username: eyeoman
- Location: St. John's, Canada
- Joined PRX: Jun 05, 2005
Piece Information
- "Unquiet Graves"
- Summary: Special essay on living in Flanders
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Review of Unquiet Graves Memorial Day Special
Elizabeth Yeoman
Posted on October 23, 2005 at 09:53 AM
I remember many years ago hitching a ride with a German truck driver across northern France. As we drove through seemingly endless fields of crimson poppies and bone white gravestones, iconic, almost dreamlike, I asked him, in my limited German, "Was ist das?". "Krieg", he answered, "War". We drove on in silence for a long long way, amidst the remains of our separate yet desperately linked histories. "Unquiet Graves" took me back to that time and place with its haunting juxtapositions of everyday life - food, flowers, conversations - and horror - bodies unearthed regularly to this day, one of them perhaps my own great-uncle, a pilot lost over France in 1917. The rich soundscape - music, a visit from a neighbour, a guided tour, the news from Iraq - and thoughtful narration make us realize how very much "over there" was with us then and is with us still.