Wilfred Owen and the Poetry of Trauma
Poets are often blessed and cursed with taking up a position at odds with public opinion. In and through their writing, they are often able to articulate sentiments that, otherwise, remain censored. This was certainly the case with the poems of Wilfred Owen, one of the leading poets of the First World War. An English poet and soldier, he experienced first hand the horror of the trenches and gas wa...
16th November 2018
Poetry & The Great War, a series: 6 Victory?
¨One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing, that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one ¨.
On the 11 th day of the 11th month in the Year of Our Lord 1918 the Great War came to an end and the guns fell silent on the Western Front. Initially there was a jubliant cele...
16th November 2018
Poetry & The Great War, a series: 5 Harsh Realities
As the conflict progressed it became a war of attrition, a war of little or no movement. It degenerated into a living hell for all concerned whether they be ally or enemy as no one was exempt the perp...
9th November 2018
Poetry & The Great War, a series: 4 The Home Front
The absence of great numbers of men resulted in changes on the Home Front where they were replaced by women in many of the essential industries. At the height of the war one million women worked in mu...
3rd November 2018
Poetry & The Great War, a series: 3 The Battle of the Somme
After nearly two years of intense conflict a battle took place in the Valley of the Somme between the British Army and the German Imperial Army. It had been long in the planning stage and at the behes...
16th October 2018
Poetry & The Great War, a series: 2 The Outbreak of War
As Britan went to war in 1914 it did so at the height of its imperial power with the largest navy the world had ever seen. As a nation we were considered invincible with London at the hub of the world...
4th October 2018
Poetry & The Great War, a Series: 1
In approximately two months time we shall commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the end of the First World War, when the guns fell silent after four years of bitter conflict which claimed the lives of ...
23rd September 2018