News Articles in the category 'General'

The CWGC website has undergone a major redesign aimed at improving the user experience and the ease with which people find information about the Commission, their work and the men and women they commemorate.

In particular, the site has been made more colourful, dynamic and easy to navigate.

Take a look - www.cwgc.org

Poet and playwright Dr Dannie Abse, recipient of the Wilfred Owen Poetry Award in 2009, has been awarded a CBE for services to poetry and literature in the 2012 New Years Honours List.  

Dr Abse talks about his CBE on the BBC Wales website.

The Wilfred Owen Association is pleased and proud to announce that Gillian Clarke has agreed to accept the Wilfred Owen Poetry Award for 2012. She will be the first woman poet to receive it.

Gillian Clarke, the National Poet of Wales, and recipient of the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2010, was born in 1937 and brought up in Cardiff. Although both of her parents were Welsh-speakers, she was not brought up to speak the language but – like R.S.Thomas – learned it as an adult.  She and her husband now live in mid-Wales, where, in addition to all their other activities, they run an organic smallholding.

Gillian studied English at the University of Wales in Cardiff, and worked briefly at the BBC before marriage and motherhood.  Her first mature poem, “The Sun Dial”, became the title poem of her first collection in 1978: there have been eleven volumes since, published mostly by Carcanet. Gillian was Editor for some years of the Anglo-Welsh Review , and is closely connected with the Writers’ Centre at Tŷ Newydd, near Cricieth in North Wales – at which the WOA now offers an annual bursary.

The WOA likes to give the Award to writers who have created a substantial body of work over the years. We do not at all insist that the recipient should be primarily a “war poet”, but it is naturally a major theme for modern poets, and all the recipients so far have, at one time or another, tackled the subject of war. Gillian Clarke has written a number of such poems – notably about the Bosnian War and the First Gulf War.  Poems such as “The Field Mouse” and “Siege” dramatically and poignantly use the Welsh landscape as both backdrop and metaphor for human hope and human cruelty.

In October 2011, a number of WOA members were able to meet Gillian, and to hear her read, at the opening of the Forester’s House near Ors. Following upon this, the Committee unanimously agreed to offer her the WOA Award for this coming year. The award is made every two years, and previous recipients include the late Christopher Logue, Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Tony Harrison, Dannie Abse and Professor Jon Stallworthy.  Gillian Clarke is a distinguished addition to this list. 

The Award will take place as close as possible to Remembrance weekend in 2012 – details will follow as soon as they can be confirmed.

Poet Christopher Logue, recipient of the Wilfred Owen Poetry Award in 1998, has died aged 85.  

An obituary will be printed in the next issue of the Wilfred Owen Association Journal.

Christopher Logue obituary (Guardian, 3 December 2011)

Due to a significant rise in value, metal has become a much sought after commodity. This increased demand has resulted in a sharp rise in metal theft nationally. War memorials and statues are amongst the items that have been taken.

Historically the scrap metal trade has been a cash in hand industry. This creates difficulties as there is no audit trail, making identification of individuals who may be trading stolen metal or who may be committing tax or benefits fraud, a difficult proposition. An amendment to the Scrap Metal Merchants Act 1964 to prohibit cash transactions would make payment by cheque or directly into a bank account mandatory and would be a significant component in reducing metal theft.

Please sign the e-petition on the HM Government website.

The Beaverbrook Vimy Prize is the Vimy Foundation’s flagship programme. Providing young students with a historical perspective second to none, the annual scholarship brings together youth from Canada, the United Kingdom and France, so that they can better appreciate the intertwined history of their three nations and come to understand the bravery and sacrifice of war.

The Beaverbrook Vimy Prize is awarded on the basis of essay submissions and interviews. Participants must be 15-17 years old with a 70% grade average at school and proven leadership skills. Winners take part in an intensive scholarship program in Europe, participating in educational seminars and museum events, including visits to the iconic Vimy War Memorial and other historic battlefields and gravesites, in England, Belgium and France.

Application deadline is February 15th, 2012.  Download a form from the Vimy Foundation's website.

Click here for more on the Vimy Foundation.

A new portrait of Wilfred Owen has been placed on display at Liverpool Cathedral.

Created by Anthony and Lorraine Brown, it is the first piece in a major new art project dedicated to soldiers through time and the impact of war on society. It features a background of images of memorabilia, photographs and, poignantly, Owen’s own hand written poems and letters.

More in the Liverpool Daily Post (November 1st 2011)

See also the Liverpool Cathedral website.

BBC Radio 4 broadcast about Wilfred Owen and the Forester's House, where Owen wrote his last letter.

Available for 7 days from November 10th.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016x2jy

Articles about the Forester's House:

A shrine to war poet hero Wilfred Owen

(The Telegraph, 13 November 2011)

How Wilfred Owen’s poetry lives on in his forest hideout

(Daily Mail, 24 October 2011)

The winner of this year's £5,000 HW Fisher Best First Biography Prize was Matthew Hollis for Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas, published by Faber.

Speaking on behalf of the judges, Michael Prodger said: ‘Matthew Hollis's Now All Roads Lead to France is not just an account of one of the First World War's less starry poets but of two worlds. The first is the febrile poetry world of the time, full of arguments, striving and intense friendships; the second is the world of creativity inside Thomas's head and just how the poems came about and were crafted. Hollis depicts both with extraordinary insight and in prose that is in the very best sense poetic.

Read about the prize on the Biographers' Club website.

An In Memoriam announcement for Wilfred Owen will appear in The Times on November 4th to mark the 93rd anniversary of his death.  It has been placed by the Wilfred Owen Association.

The notice reads:

OWEN Lieutenant Wilfred MC, poet, died while crossing the Sambre Canal, 4th November 1918. ‘And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.’

The Wilfred Owen Association is delighted to announce the winner of this year's Wilfred Owen Association Bursary, which takes the form of a fully-paid place on one of the courses at the Ty Newydd writers' centre near Cricieth. 

Out of almost twenty submissions - many of them of excellent quality - for the bursary this year, all three judges chose Rosalind Hudis, of Pont Newydd, Aberystwyth, as the outright winner. Her work seems to us to be of outstanding quality: her poetic voice is individually distinctive, but also takes its place in the tradition of R.S.Thomas and Gillian Clarke - which is high praise indeed. We particularly admired the way in which she makes the Welsh landscape act in various ways as a metaphor for the human condition and the human drama.

Ms Hudis will be a student on the "Poetry, Memoir and Fiction" course run by Owen Sheers and Paul Henry at Ty Newydd in November. We hope that she will let us have an account of the course, and also some of her poems, to publish in a future issue of the Journal of the Wilfred Owen Association. 

Over 900 people attended the opening of the stunning Maison Forestière last Saturday (October 1st).

Turner Prize nominee Simon Patterson was commissioned to convert the Forester's House (Maison Forestière), where Owen wrote his last letter on October 31st 1918, into a permanent sculptured memorial to Owen. 

More information about the Maison Forestière is on the Travel Editor website.

A feature in the Oxford Times (13 October 2011) and the Mail on Sunday (23 October 2011)

If you'd like more information please email woa@1914-18.co.uk or contact the Wilfred Owen Association France (contact@wilfredowen.fr).

Peter Owen (far right) with dignitaries at the opening

The inauguration

The stunning Maison Forestière

Photos by Sam Gray

The Wilfred Owen Association has submitted a response to Wirral Borough Council concerning Tranmere Rovers’ application for planning permission to build 100 homes on its Ingleborough Road training ground in Birkenhead.

Tranmere acquired the land, formerly the school playing field for Birkenhead Institute, from the Council in 1994.  Wilfred Owen attended the Institute between 1900 and 1906.  In the 1920s 88 trees were planted in memory of former pupils, including Owen, who had been killed in WW1.  There is also a memorial plaque.  

More information about the memorial fields is on the UK National Inventory of War Memorials website.

The WOA response

"This planning application does not give adequate consideration to the war memorial status of this site, or to the question of how  best to sustain the memory of the old boys of the Birkenhead Institute. The Wilfred Owen Association request that an attempt be made to identify and preserve the trees planted in memory of the Birkenhead Institute old boys killed in the First World War, and that full consideration be given to the fact that the playing fields and pavilion have a commemorative purpose.

The application in its present form seems ill-considered. It identifies only the tablet on the pavilion as the war memorial - without regard to the trees, or to the field itself - and the simplistic solution offered is that in moving the tablet, the whole memorial has been moved. We, the Wilfred Owen Association, are asking the planners to go back to the drawing board and to think of a way of sympathetically sustaining the memory of the old boys. This is an important case, since whatever is decided, it may act as a precedent for future planning applications relating to war memorial sites."

The Wilfred Owen Association is offering a bursary to an aspiring poet who would like to attend one of Ty Newydd’s courses in November 2011, but who is unable to do so because of his or her financial circumstances.

It is recognised that being unemployed, on income support or being a full-time student are not the only reasons for not being able to afford the full fees.  We would be grateful therefore, if you do not come under one of these headings, if you would explain briefly your circumstances and the reasons for your application for this bursary. 

We would also like you to explain why you consider that the course you have applied for would be of particular benefit to you. This can be done in the space below or in a separate letter.

Please send with your application form a small selection of your work (maximum 4 poems of moderate length), preferably by e-mail, to arrive at Ty Newydd by Monday, September 19th.  Make sure that all your work has your name on it and is marked “Wilfred Owen Bursary”.

We will inform you during the first week of October whether you have been awarded the bursary. 

The decision will be made by the Wilfred Owen Association Committee and is final.

The successful applicant will be expected to write a short report on the course which should be sent to Ty Newydd by the end of 2011.

There may be the opportunity for poems created on the course to be published in the Wilfred Owen Association Newsletter and on the Ty Newydd website.

Poems sent by post cannot be returned.

Further information, and an application form, can be downloaded from the Ty Newydd website.

See also the Literature Wales website.

Bullets and Daffodils, penned by Wirral songwriter Dean Johnson, will be previewed at the Lyceum in Port Sunlight in October. Dean Sullivan, well known for his role as Jimmy Corkhill in the former Liverpool soap will be directing the show and for the two preview performances will also be the narrator.

More information on the Liverpool Echo website (6 September 2011)

In an interview in The New Yorker, and in The Washington Post, Philip Levine, America's new poet Laureate, talks about Owen:

"When Levine was 17, his English teacher lent him a book of Wilfred Owen’s poetry. Levine, coming of age during WWII, immersed himself in this “exquisitely antiwar book” based on Owen’s experiences as a lieutenant in WWI.

“'It validated my own feelings about a future in combat,” he said. “I did not look forward to graduating high school and getting drafted. . . . If you went to the films, which we did all the time, it was very clear that you were less than a man if you weren’t willing to go out there and get blown apart in battle. And I didn’t really want to kill anybody either. . . . That was my first powerful attraction to great poetry.'”

From The Washington Post, August 10, 2011

"When I was in the eleventh grade and the war was still going, a teacher read us some poems by Wilfred Owen. And after class, for some reason, she called me up to her desk and said, “Would you like to borrow this book?” How she knew that I was responding so powerfully to these poems, I’m not sure, but I was. She said, “Now, I want you to take it home, and read it with white gloves on.” In other words, don’t spill soup on it. It was probably the most significant poetic experience I had in my whole life, and I was only seventeen."

From The New Yorker, 2006

The Wilfred Owen Story and Merseyrail are launching a poetry competition aimed at youngsters travelling by train this summer. "Rhymes on Rails" hopes to encourage children to create poetry inspired by their journey across Merseyside, however long or short.

It is free to enter and the best poems will take pride of place alongside those of Wilfred Owen at the Wilfred Owen Story and Gallery in Birkenhead. Owen spent his formative years in Birkenhead where his father Tom worked on the railway.

Sponsors Merseyrail will present the winner with a book token, and a collection of the best poems will be published in a booklet later in the year.

Entry forms are free and will be available from all Merseyrail stations. "Rhymes on Rails" will be launched on 1 August, check both here and Merseyrail’s websites for updates or email info@wilfredowenstory.com.

Download the flyer

A charming obituary of WOA's co-founder, William Mostyn-Owen, who has died aged 81.

The Guardian, 20 June 2011.

A bust of Wilfred Owen, which lay unwanted in a garage for ten years, has finally found a home at the Wilfred Owen Story in Birkenhead.

"Artist and museum worker Jim Whelan was inspired to create the cast cold resin piece after learning more about Owen and his experiences in the First World War. But he was unable to find anywhere to display it until the opening of the Wilfred Owen Story in Argyle Street, Birkenhead earlier this year".

See Wirral News (July 6th)

The manager of a charity shop checking through some old books found two postcards written by Siegfried Sassoon.

After months of research to confirm they are genuine, they are now being sold at auction and are expected to fetch between £600 and £800.

More in the Daily Mail.

A new portrait of Wilfred Owen has been unveiled at the Wilfred Owen Story, a new museum opened in Birkenhead in March this year. 

This ceremony preceded a preliminary performance of Bullets and Daffodils, a musical drama about Owen’s life.

Among those in attendance was John Gorman, famed for his comedy sketches on TV and as a member of the Scaffold, whose 1960s’ hits included Thank U Very Much and Lily the Pink.

Gorman is organising a Festival of Wirral Firsts to be held in Hoylake and Oxton during July.

The portrait was painted by Anthony Brown, who was acclaimed in 2007 for his exhibition featuring prominent Merseysiders called "100 Heads Thinking As One", which marked the 800th anniversary of Liverpool being granted its Royal Charter by King John.

Wilfred Owen by Anthony Brown

Click here to read more.

With the co-operation of two French communes (Haute Sambre-Bois L’Eveque, Mayor Marc Dufrenne, and Ors, Mayor Jacky Duminy) and the Wilfred Owen Association France, the Rector of the Academie de Lille, Mme Marie-Jeanne Philippe, organized a special event to mark the 13th Day of Remembrance in Education in France on Friday 27 May. The event was supported by the Vimy Foundation, the War Graves Commission and the Wellington Quarry at Arras. Peter Owen, President of the Wilfred Owen Association, and his wife Elizabeth were special guests.

The event honoured the memory of Wilfred Owen and brought together 160 students from colleges and lycees in Nord Pas de Calais who have studied Owen’s work.  Students from a school in Maidstone, Kent, were also invited.

The day began near the Forester’s House, where Owen wrote his last letter.  Turner Prize nominee Simon Patterson has been commissioned to convert the House into a permanent sculptured memorial to Owen.  The exterior of the house will remain ostensibly the same, but the walls will be rendered white, the roof will be white and the whole building will look like a solid sculptural object. Viewed from the north, the roof will appear normal but when viewed from the south, the structure reveals itself to be in the form of an open ‘book’, face down with spine uppermost, the ‘pages’ constructed out of glass to admit maximum daylight into the interior. The central idea is to create a sanctuary away from the outside world. The interior will therefore be gutted, leaving an open white space, lit from above. The interior of the house will be clad with a translucent skin of glass onto which are etched drafts of Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth.  The cellar remains untouched and is accessed by a curved ramp alongside which runs the text of Owen’s last letter home to his mother. More information is on the Art Connexion website.

Photos of the work, which is due to be completed in July, are below. The inaugural ceremony will be held on October 1 2011 (all welcome). For more information email woa@1914-18.co.uk

Work on the House

The Forester's House from the road

The cellar where Owen wrote his last letter

Inside the Forester's House

After visiting the Forester’s House, a ceremony took place at Owen’s grave in the small cemetery of the village of Ors, where there were speeches, as well as poetry readings, in English and French.  A wreath was laid by the children on Wilfred’s grave.

Peter Owen and others in Ors

 Students at the ceremony

With the co-operation of two French communes (Haute Sambre-Bois L’Eveque, Mayor Marc Dufrenne, and Ors, Mayor Jacky Duminy) and the Wilfred Owen Association France, the Rector of the Academie de Lille, Mme Marie-Jeanne Philippe, is organizing a special event to mark the 13th Day of Remembrance in Education in France on Friday 27 May. 

This special day will honour the memory of Wilfred Owen and will bring together 160 students from colleges and lycees in Nord Pas de Calais who have studied Owen’s work.  Students from a school in Maidstone, Kent, have also been invited.

The day will begin at 10am near the Forester’s House, where Owen wrote his last letter, and will continue with a walk through the forest, retracing his last steps as he prepared for combat on November 4th 1918.  The official ceremony will take place at 12.30pm at the tomb of the poet in the small cemetery of the village of Ors, where there will be speeches, as well as poetry readings, in English and French, by the students. 

In the afternoon students will visit sites of the two Battles of Cambrai in 1917 and 1918 and will conclude at the Tank de Flesquieres, ten kilometres from Cambrai.

The event has the support of the Vimy Foundation, the War Graves Commission and the Wellington Quarry at Arras.

Peter Owen, president of the Wilfred Owen Association, will be present at this special event to commemorate his Uncle and remember the sacrifices made by soldiers of the British Army during WW1. 

The world's last known combat veteran of World War I, Claude Choules, has died in Australia aged 110.

The man behind the exhibition, singer-songwriter Dean Johnson, is also a former pupil of the Birkenhead Institute.

He hopes the gallery will help establish a formal tourist attraction, guiding visitors to other landmarks in the town associated with the poet.

More in the Liverpool Echo (19 March 2011)

www.wilfredowenstory.com

A sculpture by artist Paul de Monchaux, whose work includes the Wilfred Owen memorial in Shrewsbury, is a new feature of the war memorial in Norwich. 

Paul de Monchaux created Symmetry, which is in the grounds of Shrewsbury Abbey.

More on the BBC website.

Click here to see the sculpture.

The WOA was very sad to hear that Vivien Noakes, the distinguished academic and literary critic, passed away on February 17th.  We send our condolences to her family.

Vivien was a leading scholar of Edward Lear and Isaac Rosenberg.

An obituary appeared in The Guardian (March 4th 2011)

The Wirral is set to become the home of the country’s first permanent tribute to WWI poet Wilfred Owen.

An exhibition organised by Dean Johnson, which opens on March 18th in Birkenhead, will commemorate the work of the famous poet.

Read more in the Wirral Globe (March 1st 2011)

See also:

Wirral News and Click Liverpool.

www.wilfredowenstory.com

Sponsorship opportunity

Dean Johnson is seeking sponsorship to fund this project.  Alternatively, if anyone involved in the printing business could assist with I.T skills (website, video production etc.) he'd love to hear from you too. Dean would also love to hear your thoughts or idea's to help move the project forward.  Contact him at:

deanjohnsonmusic@hotmail.com
07944 398 794

Mr Buckles, who joined the US army in 1917, at the age of 16, lying about his age to get enlisted, died of natural causes at his home near Charles Town, West Virginia, on Sunday.

Read more on the BBC website (28 February 2011).

Read an obituary in the Independent (2 March 2011)

"A three-dimensional art installation depicting child soldiers is being displayed outside the Houses of Parliament as part of a peace campaign. The sculpture, by Hertfordshire artist Schoony, shows the boys sprayed with the words Dulce Et Decorum Est - words from Wilfred Owen's First World War."

BBC news, 20 January 2011

"The avant-garde rock star PJ Harvey is being given the chance to travel to conflict zones where the British army is fighting by the Imperial War Museum.

The songs on Harvey's new album, Let England Shake, reflect her strong emotional response to living through a period of war in the Middle East and to other people's memories of previous campaigns."

Read more in the Guardian, 13 February 2011

Reviewing the album in the Irish Times, Tony Clayton-Lea writes: "without coming across as uninformed or pretentious, Harvey has coached her lyrics in the form of elegiac love letters to her country and a series of brittle war poetry that references Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen."

The Wilfred Owen Story, a permanent commemorative exhibition of Wilfred's life and work, with an emphasis on his time Birkenhead is very proud to announce that they will be based at 34 Argyle Street, Birkenhead.

Operating as a information centre and art gallery the Wilfred Owen Story will be the first designated cultural memorial to the poet anywhere in the North West.

It is situated on all major bus routes in the town, and is minutes from Hamilton Square Station (previously Woodside Central, where Wilfred’s father Tom worked as a station manager). 

Argyle Street is steeped in history: Wilfred learned to swim at the public baths there and No. 34 is in a terrace that received a English Heritage Blue Plaque, the site is grade 2 listed.

Work on the exhibition will begin this week and it will have its official opening on 18 March, Wilfred’s birthday.

The Wilfred Owen Story will feature regular art shows, plus poetry and music workshops and performances, and will encourage the community to find and use their voice to the same effect as the iconic figure that the building aims to honour.

Sponsorship Opportunity

Dean Johnson is seeking sponsorship to fund this project.  Alternatively, if anyone involved in the printing business could assist with I.T skills (website, video production etc.) he'd love to hear from you too. Dean would also love to hear your thoughts or idea's to help move the project forward.  Contact him at:

deanjohnsonmusic@hotmail.com

07944 398 794

The suspected theft has been covered by several local, national and some international newspaper, including The Shropshire Star, Daily Express, Daily Mail, The Sun, Daily Telegraph and The Times.  Peter Owen has also given radio and TV interviews, including this interview with ITN (search for Wilfred Owen).

Thank you to all the people who have taken the time to contact us and/or tweet this sad news.

Peter Owen, Wilfred Owen's nephew, believes that these items have been stolen from his house, sometime last year.

A brief description of the Military Cross and cigarette case follows:-

1) The Military Cross is engraved on the reverse side to Wilfred E.S. Owen and the Fonsomme Line, where he won the medal. It is boxed in a purple case together with the ribbon and a chain.

2) A cigarette case monogrammed with Wilfred Owens’s initials and a silver mark circa 1893, which is the date of his birth.

Whoever took these may try to sell either of them; his Military Cross in particular.

Mr Owen would be very grateful should anyone have any information. He can be contacted through the W.O.A website woa@1914-18.co.uk or wilfredowen1918@googlemail.com.

Wilfred Owen's Cigarette Case

Wilfred Owen's Military Cross

Wilfred Owen's Military Cross

Wilfred Owen's Military Cross

The national poet of Wales has been awarded the medal in recognition of her latest collection, A Recipe for Water, as well as her body of work.

Read more on the Guardian website (24 December 2010).

Oxford University began the initiative when it asked people across Britain to bring family letters, photographs and keepsakes from the War to be digitised. The success of the idea – which became the Great War Archive – has encouraged Europeana, Europe’s digital archive, library and museum, to bring the German National Library into an alliance with Oxford University to roll out the scheme in Germany. The collaboration will bring German soldiers’ stories online alongside their British counterparts in a 1914-18 archive.

There will be a series of roadshows in libraries around Germany that will invite people to bring documents and artefacts from family members involved in the First World War to be digitised by mobile scanning units, and to tell the stories that go with them. There will also be a website allowing people to submit material online if they are unable to attend the local events. Everything submitted will also be available through Europeana, where it will add a new perspective to collections of First World War material from institutions across Europe.

Read more on the RunCoCo website.

Andrew Motion on a careful account of the forgotten friendships of the soldier poets.

Read Motion's review on the Guardian website, 13 November 2010.

Read Tom Paulin's review of Harry Ricketts's book on the FT website, 30 October 2010.    

For details of a related event click here.

A film of Dean Johnson performing 'Futility" at Wallasey library on November 11th is now on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axQ-G1kyD_0

Futility is taken from Dean's musical play about Wilfred, Bullets and Daffodils, which will tour schools in the North West in March.

For more information click here.

The Wilfred Owen Association presents a Poetry Award to honour a poet for a sustained body of work that includes memorable war poems.

The recipient of the 2010 Award is Professor Jon Stallworthy, FBA, FRSL, poet, biographer, and literary scholar.

Jon (Howie) Stallworthy is Professor Emertius of English at the University of Oxford, and Fellow and former Acting President of Wolfson College, Oxford. Born in 1935, he was educated at the Dragon School, Rugby School, and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he won the Newdigate Prize for Poetry.  He also served in the Royal West African Frontier Force.  He was poetry editor at Oxford University Press and John Wendell Anderson Professor of English at Cornell University, New York. 

His collections of poetry include The Astronomy of Love (1961), Out of Bounds (1963), Root and Branch (1969), Hand in Hand (1974), A Familiar Tree (1978), The Anzac Sonata (1986), The Guest from the Future (1995), Rounding the Horn: Collected Poems (1998) and Body Language (2004).  His autobiography, The Singing School: The Making of a Poet, was published in 1998 and a collection of essays, Survivors' Songs, in 2008.

Jon Stallworthy's work has received numerous awards.  His biography of Wilfred Owen (1974) was honored with the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize, the W. H. Smith Literary Award, and the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His study of Yeats won the M. L. Rosenthal Award, while Louis MacNeice: A Biography (1995) won the Southern Arts Literature Prize.

He edited Owen’s Complete Poems and Fragments (1984) and Henry Reed’s Collected Poems, as well as numerous anthologies, including The Norton Anthology of Poetry (1996, with Margaret Ferguson and Mary Jo Salter), A Book of Love Poetry (1974), and The Oxford Book of War Poetry (1984). With Peter France, he co-translated Alexander Blok’s Selected Poems (1970, originally titled The Twelve and Other Poems) and Boris Pasternak’s Selected Poems (1983).

The presentation will take place at Wolfson College, Oxford, on Saturday November 13th 2010. Professor Stallworthy will be interviewed by Dr Jane Potter and will read some of his poetry (this event has now sold out).

Thanks to sponsorship from Coutts, the WOA has commission Royal College of Art student Chrystalla Achilleos to design the award itself.   

We have a pair of tickets for Birdsong to give away to members attending our AGM on November 13th.  All attendees are automatically entered into the free prize draw.  Members who are unable to attend can enter too - see our Notice Board for details.

Click here for more information about the AGM.

The AGM is followed by the presentation of the 2010 Wilfred Owen Poetry Award to Professor John Stallworthy.  Click here for details of the presentation.

The medals, plaques, medallions and original artwork won by Pinter - who died in 2008, aged 78 - "include the 2004 Wilfred Owen Prize, awarded after he wrote controversial poems opposing war in Iraq".

More on the BBC website (20 October 2010).

Click here for more about the Wilfred Owen Poetry Award.

The ceremony to name the new town green in Oswestry "Wilfred Owen Green" took place on Saturday October 9th.

Peter Owen, the nephew of Wilfred Owen and President of the Wilfred Owen Association, read two of Wilfred's poems and released a white dove as a symbol of peace.

Click here for photographs.  These photographs were kindly supplied by June McCarthy from Oswestry.

A short film of Peter Owen releasing the dove, taken by
The Best Of Oswestry, is available on YouTube.

The sounding of the Last Post and a release of doves of peace will be part of a poignant ceremony to mark the official naming of Oswestry’s town green as The Wilfred Owen Green.

The ceremony takes place on Saturday 9 October - all welcome.

More on the Shropshire Star website (7 October 2010).

Article about war poetry, which appeared in the Independent on Sunday on October 3rd 2010.

Independent on Sunday website, 3 October 2010

Asked by the Radio Times about his favourite poem ahead of National Poetry Day next month, Cameron said: ‘I still remember the first time I read Owen’s poems and the incredible power and anger about the First World War.

‘For me, they were literally an eye-opener and I still find them moving when I read them again today.’

Read more on the Daily Mail website (28/9/10) and on the Shropshire Star website (28/9/10) 

The Wilfred Owen Green has wildflower meadows, natural play and play equipment and a labyrinth.  There are plans in the pipeline to start organising events in the park, including poetry readings.

Further details on the Shropshire Star website (20 September 2010).

More information about the Wilfred Owen Green is on the Shropshire Council website.

The official naming ceremony will be held on October 9th at 1pm.

A monument to Wilfred Owen could be created in Oswestry after residents called for the town’s heritage to be celebrated.  Council officials are calling on the public to send in letters of suggestions for what kind of memorial could be created and where they think it should be.

More information on the Shropshire Star website (18 September 2010).

See also: Letter: A better way to honour Wilfred Owen’s generation?

"The unknown nurse kept the book on her uniform while she worked in auxiliary hospitals in England throughout the conflict.

As she built up a bed-side relationship with the soldiers she treated, the unnamed nurse asked them to write their thoughts down in the little book."

Read more on the Daily Telegraph website (6 September 2010)

The Edward Thomas Fellowship has published a fine-art limited-edition book featuring eighteen poems by Edward Thomas, illustrated by specially commissioned wood engravings by contemporary artists. This project follows on from the popular series of notecards produced by the Fellowship.

Photographs and further details are on the Edward Thomas Fellowship website.

Shropshire officials have given their backing to officially change the name of Oswestry’s five-acre site off Gobowen Road to Wilfred Owen Town Green.

It is hoped the Green will become a venue for events marking the outbreak of World War One which has its centenary in 2014.

Read more on the Shropshire Star website (19 August 2010)

Chris Hearn, co-owner of The Loddon Brewery, has presented a cheque for £460 to All Saints Church in Dunsden. The Money was raised through sales of their Monthly special for May, Wilfred’s Mild, named after Wilfred Owen.

Wilfred worked as Lay Assistant to the vicar of All Saints Church (found in the field behind the brewery) from 1911-1913, shortly before he went to war. His parents Susan and Tom, and his sister Mary, are buried in the church yard.

Read more on the Society of Independent Brewers website and, if you are a WOA member, in the latest issue of our Journal.

Songwriter and musician Dean Johnson is currently working on a stageshow called Bullets & Daffodils, which is based on the life and work of Wilfred Owen, and he has uploaded some music onto his website.

As well as original songs, many of Owen's most famous poems have been set to music by Dean. 

There will be a premiere of the songs in Owen's birthplace of Oswestry, Shropshire, on 12 August 2010.  Dean will perform the musical’s score solo and narrate key events leading up to Wilfred’s tragic death, and some of Oswestry's promising new poets will precede Dean’s performance. Click here for further details.

Dean will also be performing at Birkenhead Library in November.  Details to follow.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has published a list of names who may be among those recovered from the site.

British and Australian families who believe they have connections to, or information on, one of these WW1 soldiers are being encouraged to come forward to assist with the process of identification, which will remain open until 2014.

Further information is on the Commonweath War Graves Commission website.

Click here to read more about the Battle of Fromelles.

The Wilfred Owen Association was saddened to learn of the death of our former Secretary, Ken Simcox.

Philip Guest,  a WOA Vice-President and former Treasurer, paid tribute to Mr Simcox and his contribution to the Association:

"It was a great shock to me to hear of Ken's untimely death-such a charming gentleman and friend. It was only recently that I spoke to him at the telephone. I first met Ken when I was invited to be hon treasurer of the Wilfred Owen Association under the command of Robert Hutchison in respect of the raising of some £30,000 for memorials to our great poet in Shrewsbury and Oswestry. That would be, perhaps, 20 years ago. (At 86 yrs my memory is not so good).

Later, I set up a web site in the name of the Association, the content of which had a military flavour relating to Wilfred's army service-an aspect of research that had not previously been fully examined.  Later, following input from Merryn Williams, I realised the value of her contributions in enhancing the academic side of the web site.  It was then that Ken came to my aid around 1999 and, in the course of almost a decade produced critiques (some 60 or so for me to type!) and thereafter, publish on the Association's web site.  They are still there today, in his name, and are a worthy tribute to a man I consider was always too modest concerning his achievements in his research and writings on the life of Wilfred Owen.

We will all miss him."

The Wilfred Owen Association is 21 years old this year.

The generous support of our members allows us to promote and encourage awareness and appreciation of Owen's poetry, and enables us to offer practical support to students of literature and future poets, through links with education, support for literary foundations and information on historical and literary background material.  

Thanks to our members the Association has established permanent public memorials to Owen in Shrewsbury and Oswestry, and organised or promoted numerous readings, talks, visits, conferences, exhibitions and performances.

Please help us to continue this work by joining us today.  Subscription fees start at just £8.  All members receive copies of our Journal, published twice a year. 

Loddon Brewery, based in Dunsden Green, has launched a "Wilfred's Mild" to celebrate the life and work of Wilfred Owen, who worked as a lay assistant at All Saints Church, behind the brewery.

The brewery is generously donating 10 pence from every pint of Wilfred's Mild sold to All Saints Church to help with essential maintenance works.

Artist Craig Barrett’s Everyman installation, a response to the war poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, hangs in the Hall of Columns at the Shrine of Remembrance.

More information in the Stonnington Leader, 24 April 2010

The Wirral Globe has reported that musician Dean Johnson is currently working on a musical play about Wilfred Owen. 

There is more information on Dean's website

I contacted Dean and he has kindly supplied the following synopsis:

Bullets and Daffodils is a musical play in two acts based on the life of Wilfred Owen.  The first act deals with his life before the war, the second of his life in the war including his death. It explores the relationship with his mother through his letters, poetry  and his life's events. Dialogue is interspersed with songs written and performed by Dean Johnson.

Wilfred tries to convey home to his mother through his letters and through his poetry his feelings on life and the horrors of war at the same time going through the agony of his inner torments.  We explore what he wrote and what we presume he actually meant.

We hope to explore the experience of a mothers feelings and loss through warfare and hopefully bring home a relevant details that all can be related to and still exist today.

We hope the play will appeal to a wide audience and have educational value.

The play has two characters Wilfred and Susan, and a singer, the set is a Victorian parlour/sitting room filled with plants and relevant props that are used throughout the play.

It is Armistice Day 1918, church bells are ringing.

Wilfred appears on stage simultaneously commenting throughout the play but unseen to Susan.  He is in uniform.

The play ends with a knock at the door.

Tŷ Newydd is the National Writers' Centre for Wales and since 1990 has attracted writers from all over the world, both as tutors and course participants.

The Centre offers courses for poets, novelists, script and screenwriters, playwrights, and many other genres.

The Wilfred Owen Association is offering one bursary of up to £480 to cover the cost of a poetry course at Tŷ Newydd.  The bursary is offered on a competitive basis.  Exact details, together with an application form, will be available shortly.  Watch this space!

Owen manuscripts are amongst the items on display in an exhibition at Renishaw Hall. The exhibition is open from Thursdays to Sundays, and on bank holidays, from 10.30am to 4pm until September 26.

Renishaw Hall has been the home of the Sitwell family for over 400 years.

The Star, 7 April 2010

A living memorial to Wilfred Owen in his home town of Oswestry should be ready by May.

Owen was born in a house called Plas Wilmot, just outside the Shropshire town, in March 1893.

Border Counties Advertiser, 30 March 2010

Wilfred Owen Poetry Award recipient Dr Dannie Abse will judge a new medical poetry contest.  The winning entry will receive £15,000.

"The winners of the Hippocrates Prize will be announced at a symposium on Poetry and Medicine on 10 April, at the University of Warwick, which is supporting the prize jointly with the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine".

Independent, p17, 24 March 2010

Members of the Wilfred Owen Association came from around the country to see the plaque, which has replaced a much smaller one, unveiled at 69 Monkmoor Road, Shrewsbury, where Wilfred lived with his parents.

Read more on the Shropshire Star website.

The plaque will be uncovered by Peter Owen on 20th March at 2pm.  All welcome.  Further details on the Shropshire Star website.

Information about this event is also on our website.

Benjamin Britten’s “War Requiem” was performed on the opening night of Novaya Opera’s annual “Epiphany Week”, held in Moscow.  Writing in the Moscow Times, Raymond Stults called this performance the best of the festival:

"The very best of what I heard at the festival came on its opening night, with a superbly played and sung performance of Benjamin Britten’s “War Requiem” under the baton of British guest conductor Jan Latham-Koenig. A moving expression of the composer’s anti-war sentiments, the “War Requiem” combines the words of the Latin Mass for the Dead and poems by the great British poet of World War I, Wilfred Owen, and calls for enormous musical forces: a full-sized and a chamber orchestra, an adult mixed chorus and a boys’ choir and three vocal soloists".

The “War Requiem” is due to be repeated at Novaya Opera on May 9. 

Read the review on the Moscow Times website

A report on plans for the Forester's House, where Owen wrote his last letter.

Shropshire Star

Further information about this project is on the Association Wilfred Owen France website.

Read more about the first Oswestry Literary Festival, to be staged over Owen's birthday, in the Shropshire Star.

The Association Wilfred Owen France will be promoting The Forester's House, a museum dedicated to Wilfred Owen, at The France Show 2010, which will be held at Earls Court, London. The Association and others will be holding a press conference to discuss the museum, sceduled to open in 2011, at 3.30pm on 8th January (stand L53).

Download a press release from here.

We have received the following information from Benoit Misson, President of The Association Wilfred Owen France:

"We may count on the presence of the 'Tourism Authority of the Cambrésis' for a 'France Show 2010' meeting to be held in London. A communication about the future of the Forester's House (where Wilfred Owen wrote his last letter) will take place on January 8 - 15:30. Mr Renaud TARDY (Vice
President of the Conseil Général du Nord), several members of the Association and Simon Patterson, the artist, will be present".

The France Show website is www.thefranceshow.com

WOA members are urged to attend to show their support!

The Association Wilfred Owen France website is www.wilfredowen.fr

US band Picture Atlantic have released an EP called "Dulce Et Decorum Est".  They talk about the influence of Owen's famous poem on the Indie Rock Reviews website.

A short film about the recent commemorations in Ors, France, marking the 91st anniversary of Owen's death, has been uploaded to "AOL video".  Click on this link:
http://video.aol.co.uk/video-detail/91me-anniversaire-de-la-mort-de-wilfred-owen/1100304653

For more information about this annual event see www.wilfredowen.fr

Peter Owen, Wilfred Owen's nephew, his wife Elizabeth and several members of the Wilfred Owen Association were present at the "Passing of a Generation" service held at Westminster Abbey yesterday (November 11th).

This special Remembrance Service honoured all those who fought in the First World War and was prompted by the death in July of the last Tommy, Harry Patch.  Further details are on the Independent website.

In an editorial in the Independent, Robert Fisk considers if, as English evolves in the digital age, the powerful words of the Great War writers and poets will "soon stop making sense"?
Independent, 11 November 2009

Oxford University is marking this year’s Armistice Day by launching the first online collection of the manuscripts of Siegfried Sassoon, focusing on his war poetry.
Culture24, 4 November 2009

Read about this year's homage to Wilfred in La Voix du Nord (8 November 2009)

Plans to turn the Maison Forestière into a museum to Wilfred Owen were also discussed in La Voix du Nord last week (2 November 2009).

The Association Wilfred Owen France has launched a new website - see www.wilfredowen.fr

A campaign to save Siegfried Sassoon's papers for the nation has been bolstered by a grant of £550,000 from The National Heritage Memorial Fund.  Further details are on the BBC website.

The grant will leave the fund with £110,000 still to raise.  For further details about the appeal, and to make a donation, please click here.

This project, which is funded by JISC, has arranged a range of digitised archival materials like poetry manuscripts, letters and diaries from the major poets of the First World War, including Wilfred Owen, along with contextual primary source materials. These materials have been supplemented with new interpretative content and a spectrum of interactive tools and tutorials, streaming video and audio effects (JISC News, 2 November 2009).

Further details, and a link into Second Life, are on the JISC website.

The 2009 AGM will be held at Neal's Yard Meeting Rooms, 14 Neal's Yard, London on Saturday November 21st at 2pm. All members are very welcome.

The AGM will be folllowed by the presentation of The Wilfred Owen Poetry Award.  The Wilfred Owen Association presents a biennial Poetry Award to honour a poet for a sustained body of work that includes memorable war poems.

The recipient of the 2009 Award is Dr Dannie Abse, for his sixty-year-long body of work.

The presentation will take place at 3pm. Dr Abse will be interviewed by Dr Merryn Williams.

Entrance (on the door) is £5 for WOA members and £6 for non-members. Refreshments will be available. Please let the Secretary, Mrs Vanessa Davis, know if you will be coming, to help with the catering arrangements:  vcedavis@hotmail.com or write to her at 29 Arthur Road, London SW19 7DN.

This event will be followed by supper at La Piazzetta, 13 Neal's Yard.  If you would like to join us, please email Vanessa Davis at vcedavis@hotmail.com before November 8th.

Wilfred Owen came fourth in a recent online poll to find the nation's favourite poet. The results of the vote were announced today - October 8th - to mark National Poetry Day. Further details are on the BBC website.

The Daily Telegraph reports that Owen led for several months!

Ben Uri has announce the acquisition of "Self-portrait in
steel helmet" by Isaac Rosenberg c.1916 purchased with the assistance of grants from The Art Fund, the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the generosity of many private supporters.

Jonathan Horwich, Chairman of the Museum's Acquisitions Committee said:

"This is a hugely important acquisition of national significance for BenUri.  Rosenberg was a distinguished poet and artist whose life was cruelly cut short dying in the trenches in Arras, France, serving King and country
in 1918. His work is rare and this remarkable example executed on a brown paper bag whilst in the trenches has been the centrepiece of each of the four major retrospectives of his work. It featured most recently on the front cover of Ben Uri's "Whitechapel at War, Isaac Rosenberg and his
Circle" exhibition catalogue. This exceptional work is of significant art-historical as well as biographical importance and fills a long standing gap in our preeminent collection of this milieu."

The Wilfred Owen Association presents a biennial Poetry Award to honour a poet for a sustained body of work that includes memorable war poems.

The recipient of the 2009 Award is Dr Dannie Abse, for his sixty-year-long body of work. 

The presentation will take place at Neal's Yard Meeting Rooms, 14 Neal's Yard, London on Saturday November 21st at 3pm. Dr Abse will be interviewed by Dr Merryn Williams.

Entrance (on the door) is £5 for WOA members and £6 for non-members. Refreshments will be available. Please let the Secretary, Mrs Vanessa Davis, know if you will be coming, to help with the catering arrangements:  vcedavis@hotmail.com or write to her at 29 Arthur Road, London SW19 7DN.

The presentation follows the Wilfred Owen Association AGM at 2pm, which is open to members only.

The latest issue of our journal carried an edited version of Velma Guyer’s  review of the Songs of War Concert, which was held at St. James’s Church Piccadilly in April this year.  A full length copy of Velma’s review is now available to download.

The WOA would like to thank Velma Guyer for allowing us to publish this.

The BBC poetry site is running an online poll to find Britain's favourite poet.

Voters can choose from a shortlist of 30 poets, selected by a panel of judges. Wilfred Owen is amongst those shortlisted.

The poll closes on September 1st and the winner will be announced on October 8th, National Poetry Day.

Available from Mr and Mrs Dennis Silk:  A CD of Siegfried Sassoon reading 15 of his own poems (£10) and a small booklet containing Dennis Silk's 1998 talk at the Imperial War Museum: Siegfried Sassoon and The Great War: The Making of a War Poet (£5).  Postage and packing £1.50.

Mr and Mrs Silk give all proceeds to a local charity, "Hop, Skip and Jump". The charity supplies respite care for children with special needs and care and support for their families.

The CD and booklet are available from:  Mr and Mrs Dennis Silk, Sturts Barn, Huntham Lane, Stoke St Gregory, Taunton, Somerset, TA3 6EG.

Please make cheques payable to:  Dennis Silk

For further information about Siegfried Sassoon, and Cambridge University's appeal to raise money to buy his archive, visit the Siegfried Sassoon Fellowship's website.

Erica Wagner, writing in The Times last Saturday (8 August 2009), introduces an alternative selection of war poetry written by poets “whose experience of conflict is direct, intimate, everyday; who were born in conflict zones, who live and work there; the poets in Afghanistan, Gaza, Iraq, Somalia, Sri Lanka.”

Click here to read the poems on the Times website

The funeral of WW1 veteran Harry Patch took place at Wells Cathedral today (6 August 2009). 

Thousands of people lined the streets of Wells, Somerset, to watch the funeral procession.

Mr Patch's coffin was flanked by six private soldiers of the Rifles Regiment, the successor to Mr Patch's Regiment, the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. Two soldiers from the armies of Belgium, France and Germany also acted as pall bearers.

Watch video footage on the BBC website and on the Daily Telegraph website

Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has written a poem to mark the passing of the last WW1 veterans.  “The Last Post” uses "Dulce et Decorum Est" as a starting-point.  You can listen online on the BBC Radio 4 website, or read the poem, and a review, on the Times website.

The National Poet of Wales, Gillian Clarke, has also written a poem called The Plumber.  You can listen to this, or read it, on the BBC Radio 4 website.

Hundreds of people lined the streets to watch the funeral of World War I veteran Henry Allingham, which took place in Brighton today (30 July 2009). One of his grandsons, David Gray, paid a moving tribute to his grandfather at the service.

Footage of the funeral is on the BBC website at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8175751.stm and you can listen to David Gray's tribute at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8176549.stm

"With the conflict in Afghanistan escalating and the Iraq inquiry pending, poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy commissions war poetry for today".

Guardian, 25 July 2009

The Wilfred Owen Association was saddened to learn of the death of Jill Balcon at the age of 84.

Ms Balcon, who was married to the poet C Day-Lewis, was a Vice-President of the Association and read Wilfred's poetry at the unveiling of a plaque to commemorate him at All Saints Church in Dunsden.

Her obituary was published in the Guardian on July 20th and in the Daily Telegraph on the 21st.  The WOA will be publishing an obituary in its forthcoming Journal.

Enitharmon Press has published a Festschrift celebrating the 70th birthday of Michael Longley, former winner of the Wilfred Owen Poetry Award.

Michael Longley has been acknowledged as one of our most important living poets: Seamus Heaney has described him as "a keeper of the artistic estate, a custodian of griefs and wonders" and John Burnside as "one of the finest lyric poets of our century".

To learn more about Michael Longley, and this special publication, please click here.

Edinburgh Evening News has reported that a £20,000 fundraising drive is to be launched to place a sculpture in the heart of Craiglockhart.

The design, by Polwarth-based sculptor Lara Greene, is inspired by the work of Wilfred Owen, who was treated for shell shock at Craiglockhart War Hospital in 1917.
Scotsman.com, 2 July 2009

A fund raising campaign to acquire the archive of Siegfried Sassoon's personal papers has been launched by Cambridge University at Sotheby’s.
University of Cambridge, 26 June 2009

Further details are on the Siegfried Sassoon Fellowship’s website.

If you would like to make a donation please download this form.  A gift aid form is also available.

"The Parable of the Old Man and the Young" is the Guardian's "Poem of the Week". 

Carol Rumens looks at "Wilfred Owen's retelling of the Abraham myth, and how it chimes with Barack Obama's speech in Cairo".

Join the debate on the Guardian's blog

Welcome to the Wilfred Owen Association's website!

How can you get to know a poet who was killed in the First World War? Owen's work was virtually unknown at the time of his death, at the age of only 25, yet for many people today his poems are the voice of the conflict. This website enables you to explore life, family, war experience and writing of Wilfred Owen, now perhaps the best-known of the poets of 1914-1918.

Here you will find a full range of material - the poet's life and work, and the settings which helped to shape his writing. If you want biographical detail, the range of his literary influences and friendships or practical information on visiting sites associated with Owen, you will find it here.

From News to Bibliography, via Chronology, Memorials and a Virtual Tour of important sites, the essential people, settings and events of his short life appear together with a selection of poems and comment.

The website reflects many years of reading and study which have been used for personal reading and presentations for education and the media. This is essential material for better knowledge of the writer and his poetry, for information and for visits.

Helen McPhail, Vice-President and former Chair of the Wilfred Owen Association

Observer, 24 May 2009

"Honouring the works of Owen and Sassoon, the BBC will send Simon Armitage... to Helmand province to capture the lives of British troops in conflict".

The makers of the one-hour documentary, Behind the Lines, plan to film Armitage’s response to frontline operations.

The Telegraph, 13 March 2009

A vast archive containing information about the death, burial or capture of more than 20 million soldiers who fought in the First World War has been discovered by historian Peter Barton in the basement of the Red Cross headquarters in Geneva. The information has the potential to pinpoint the final resting places of those listed as missing in action, which could mean headstones currently marking the grave of an unknown soldier finally bearing a name. The Red Cross is to spend more than £2 million digitising the records in time for the centenary of the outbreak of war in 2014.