POEMS 1941—1945
SYDNEY WALTER JOSLAND
Review: The troops of many nations, including America, Britain, and Australia, are once again in Baghdad – some sixty years after Sydney Josland professed his love of the Middle East in the eternal language of love – poetry. Josland's poems reflect a different time and circumstance, and demonstrate a clear affinity with that ancient land... but more especially with people who inhabit that land. His writings are laced with the haunting beat of a time and place that has been forever changed by demigods and fundamentalists. His words remind and teach us to mourn the loss of simpler times and saner reasoning. A wonderful, wonderful collection.
Review by:
Anthony W. Pahl, OAM
IWVPA Webmaster
December 3, 2006
©Copyright Sydney Walter Josland 2005
ISBN 0-908943-29-6
Designed, typeset in Centaur, printed, and bound by John Denny at the
Puriri Press, 37 Margot Street, Epsom, Auckland, New Zealand
Cover linocut by John Z. Robinson
Copies of the book can be ordered at a cost of NZ$24.00 by contacting David Josland by email
Before World War II, Josland was a Captain in the Twenty-fifth (Wellington) Battalion and went to the war in the Twenty-fifth Battalion (Third Echelon) of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force. He served in Greece, Italy, the Middle East and North Africa.
Josland returned to New Zealand at the end of the war with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and resumed his career as a biochemist. Upon his retirement from the Military Forces in 1946, he was awarded an Efficiency Decoration for his services to the New Zealand Army. He died in 1991.