Rhymes of the Rookies: Sunny Side of Soldier Service — Edition Insights

Voice and Vernacular

The poems consistently adopt a first-person, enlisted man’s voice, using contractions, dropped consonants, and military jargon. In “My Bunkie,” the speaker describes his comrade as “mostly gnarls and freckles and tan,” a line that avoids sentimentality by focusing on physical detail. The vocabulary is deliberately rough: “swearin’, fightin’ cavalryman,” “rotten booze,” “court-martialed.” Christian does not gloss the terms; “bunkie,” “punk and java,” “dog and cakes” are left for the reader to infer. The effect is a kind of insider code, reinforcing the sense that these rhymes are meant for those who already know the life.

Structure as Routine

Several poems mirror the rigid schedule of military life. “Routine (From a Marine’s Diary)” is built as a timeline from 5:05 A.M. to Taps, each stanza keyed to a bugle call or duty. The repetition of times and the deadpan delivery—“I heard the First Call sound, and then— / Just yawned and went to sleep again”—turn the structure itself into a joke about the futility of resisting routine. Similarly, “On the Border” uses a refrain of place names (“Arizona,” “Naco,” “Hell”) to create a litany of complaint that is also a kind of chant. The catalog form appears again in “The Uniform,” where the speaker lists civilian insults before dismissing them.

Tensions in Tone

Christian’s poems oscillate between camaraderie and grievance. “My Bunkie” ends with the pair sneaking out after Taps to “talk about things appertaining to home,” a moment of vulnerability. But the same poem earlier boasts of the bunkie’s violent streak: “he licks him and makes him the laugh of the streets.” In “O’Reilly’s Gone to Hell,” the chorus celebrates a soldier’s desertion and court-martial with a jaunty tune. The humor is dark, and the target is often the army itself—its rules, its food, its boredom. Yet the dedication to Roosevelt and the inclusion of patriotic verses like “To the Colors” suggest that the griping is contained within a framework of ultimate loyalty.

Readers should approach these poems as period artifacts rather than polished verse. The slang and references to specific locations (Naco, Olongapo, the Philippines) reward a bit of historical context, but the core experience—the mix of monotony, irritation, and solidarity—is conveyed directly. The collection is best read in short bursts, letting the repeated rhythms and blunt humor accumulate.

I found myself thinking about Rhymes of the Rookies long after closing it—that rough, honest grip on daily soldiering. There’s a quietness underneath the slang, like how Milton’s companion pieces hold both light and shadow. Something about that balance of laughter and weariness stayed with me, the way L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas — Reading Companion does. Just the two of them, sitting differently now.