'In Flanders fields the poppies blowBetween the crosses, row on row'In Flanders Fields by John McCrae, 1915 Poppies were very common on the battlefields during the First World War. Poets and writers were inspired by the sight of the vibrant red poppies blooming on the battlefield wasteland.Although he does not specifically mention poppies, Welsh poet and First World War soldier Hedd Wyn wrote of seeing flowers growing on the battlefield, and reflected that 'the flowers of France will be sad flowers from now on ...[for they] will be the colour of blood.' After the First World War, I.D. Hooson wrote a well-known poem called Y Pabi Coch, using the poppy as a metaphor for a soldier killed in the war.In 1915, while serving in France, the Canadian doctor John McCrae wrote In Flanders Fields. It was published anonymously in Punch magazine on 8 December 1915 and quickly became one of the most popular poems of the war.