#WeWillRememberThem

War continues to divide people, to change them forever, and I write about it both because I want people to understand the absolute futility of war, the 'pity of war' as Wilfred Owen called it.

Michael Morpurgo

At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month this year we acknowledge the centenary of the end of the First World War. The First world war is sometimes referred to as the Great War, I always struggle a little with that erm however, the “Great” element simply indicates the shear size of the conflict, when one considers over forty million soldiers and civilians died, nobody could dispute this was a Great loss of life!

Out of the hell that was war, came expressions of the pain and suffering, the mental torture and the despair through writing, art and poetry, often dark and foreboding but created with a passion that only comes through bitter experience.

Of the Great War poets, perhaps most acclaimed and celebrated was Wilfred Owen, his seminal poem, which still brings the horrors of the battlefield into vivid focus is Dulce et Decorum Est.

Wilfred Owen‘s poetry remains one of the defining testimonies of the First World World, not least because the poet was killed in action on November 4 1918, just one week, almost to the hour, before the signing of the Armistice which would end the war. His mother would receive the telegram informing her of his death on Armistice Day as the church bells rang out in celebration. Owen was posthumously promoted to the rank of Lieutenant, and is buried at Ors Communal Cemetery in Northern France. Dulce et Decorum Est was published in 1920, two years after the poet’s death, with the earliest surviving manuscript dating October 1917. It was written during Owen’s stay at Edinburgh’s Craiglockhart Hospital for ‘neurasthenia’ or shell-shock, where he met and formed a strong friendship with fellow war poet Siegfried Sassoon. It is addressed to his mother with the message: “Here is a gas poem done yesterday (which is not private, but not final).” Originally, Owen had dedicated the poem to Jessie Pope, a civilian propagandist who had encouraged young men to join up through her ardent, patriotic poetry and although the note of dedication was later dropped, the message remains in the bitter address which draws the poem to a close:

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest to children ardent for some desperate glory, the old Lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

It’s thought that Owen widened this address to include all supporters of the war, in particular those who handed white feathers to men at home in a public accusation of cowardice.

While On Active Service, an anthology of war poetry, seeks to include the best of First World War prose, the range in style and subject attempts to capture the breadth of experience which in turn feeds into the overarching sentiment of sorrow, futility and bitterness. Wilfred Owen‘s Dulce et Decorum Est is one of the most overtly bitter accounts from any of the war poets included in the anthology, but as a representation of “writing from the moment of experience itself by people actually in it”, there is no greater poem.

Dulce et Decorum Est Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.— Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen

Respectfully worn today;

Head, Eyes & Teeth – Catwa Head, Rigged Eyes and teeth - Catya v3.2

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Necklace – Maxi Gossamer Gold Peace Pendant - Long

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Poppy Pin – Likz Remembrance Poppy Pin Badge

Text Relative to the Poppy Pin written by the creator;

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