Īt the age of 41, McCrae enrolled with the Canadian Expeditionary Force following the outbreak of the First World War. McCrae's poetry often focused on death and the peace that followed. His earliest works were published in the mid-1890s in Canadian magazines and newspapers. He developed an interest in poetry at a young age and wrote throughout his life.
John McCrae was a poet and physician from Guelph, Ontario. Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae was a soldier, physician and poet.
The poem is also widely known in the United States, where it is associated with Veterans Day and Memorial Day. The poem and poppy are prominent Remembrance Day symbols throughout the Commonwealth of Nations, particularly in Canada, where "In Flanders Fields" is one of the nation's best-known literary works. Its references to the red poppies that grew over the graves of fallen soldiers resulted in the remembrance poppy becoming one of the world's most recognized memorial symbols for soldiers who have died in conflict. As a result of its immediate popularity, parts of the poem were used in efforts and appeals to recruit soldiers and raise money selling war bonds. It is one of the most quoted poems from the war. Flanders Fields is a common English name of the World War I battlefields in Belgium and France. "In Flanders Fields" was first published on December 8 of that year in the London magazine Punch. According to legend, fellow soldiers retrieved the poem after McCrae, initially dissatisfied with his work, discarded it. He was inspired to write it on May 3, 1915, after presiding over the funeral of friend and fellow soldier Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres. " In Flanders Fields" is a war poem in the form of a rondeau, written during the First World War by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae. Inscription of the complete poem in a bronze book at the John McCrae memorial at his birthplace in Guelph, Ontario