Inverted Maps

Cagibi Journal

8 years ago

Belgian Flanders, 1917

As a rule it was North
up and scale
consistent from
sheet to sheet

but for a few weeks
early on certain
sheets had
German batteries

up—disorienting
for us but exactly how
it looked
to the guns.

by Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr.

From Cagibi Issue 2: Four Poems by Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr.

Notes on Sources

This poem draws from Chasseaud, Peter. Artillery’s Astrologers: A History of British Survey and Mapping on the Western Front 1914-1918. Lewes, East Sussex, UK: Mapbooks, 1999. 54.

About the Author

Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr. is a poet, translator (of classical and contemporary Persian), and corporate consultant. Her collection of poems, SERIES | INDIA, was published by Four Way Books in April 2015. Other work has appeared in Little Star, Talisman, Paris Lit Up, Poetry International, The Kenyon Review Online, New England Review, Ploughshares, The Harvard Review, Best New Poets 2012, and elsewhere. She serves as a Guest Editor on occasion, and on the boards of Friends of Writers, the Beloit Poetry Journal Foundation, and the Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Iran. She has a B.A. and J.D. from Harvard University and an M.F.A. from Warren Wilson College. www.elizabethtgrayjr.com.

About the Artwork

Photo courtesy of the author: Detail of British Trench Map sheet 28 NE 3 Hooge I.11-12, Ed. 2., trenches corrected through 22 July 1917 (in the public domain).