Description

Once Upon a World War II

by Kazimieras Campe

The poems in Once Upon a World War II delve into a childhood spent living and surviving World War II, starting with Native Lithuania and ending in arrival to America. Unlike parents, children for the most part looked at wartime with a perverse degree of normalcy. Yes, there was deprivation. However, there was an innate desire to make do, in spite of all that war brings with it.

Early Praise

Once Upon a World War II is a collection that puts together vignettes and scenes of childhood in Eastern Europe during WWII. Each poem is like a poignant photograph, some in sepia and others in color, taking us back to moments of clarity with extraordinary craft. Each poem is tight and designed to expand with either feeling or a meaning; the adult is discovering himself in flashbacks from his past in the war-torn landscape, with extraordinary circumstances of survival. With both tenderness and rage, Kazimieras Campe brings the reader into life as a refugee who still manages to find childhood joys hidden in his memories. Finally, the current war in Ukraine is mentioned, and haunting; so many children will share his fate. The poems are inviting, readable, and re-readable.

—Mark Fishbein, MFA Columbia College, Chancellor of PGN Poetry Academy

Not to be missed, this moving glimpse of a child’s experience of life in the displaced persons camp at the end of WWII. We should be thankful that the poet has delved into his memory to share this with us.

—Bradley Strahan, former editor of Visions International

What Campe does in poem after poem is to show us a child witnessing World War II just as it’s starting in Lithuania, “For three days…we lay in muddy trenches and watched pine trunks being peeled by singing bullets and listening to screaming artillery shells.” He goes on to describe living as a displaced child in post-war Germany: “Scout uniforms: Wehrmacht helmets…bayonets replacing pocket knives.”

—Mary Sesso, author of The Open Window

Kaz Campe’s Once Upon a World War II relives the poignancy, amazement, and even humor of his younger self’s experiences during and shortly after this unprecedented global conflict. In sharply observed European vignettes, he rewards the reader with narrative and contemplative poetic insights into a life most of us will hopefully never have to live through. These carefully observed poems personalize and make the Second War’s impact more tangible than any history book account. Childhood memories commence with the war’s onset and shift to subsequent exile, including day-to-day refugee existence in a displaced person’s camp. A brief peek into American life rounds out the collection

—Philip Wexler, author of Bozo’s Obstacle

About the Author

Kazimieras Campe is a retired nuclear engineer who has been writing poetry for over 60 years. In Once Upon a World War II he reminisces about his childhood years throughout the maelstrom of World War II.  His poetry spans a number of journals and magazines, including Visions International, The Hot Callaloo, The University of Connecticut Fine Arts Magazine, The Metropolitan, Innisfree Magazine, and the Dan River Anthology.  His chapbook Why Do We Look Up? (The Poetry Box) delves into multiple views of the relationship between humanity and the universe.  Currently he is working on a collection of poems laced with a modern perspective on Adam and Eve.