War Poets in World War I

JEFFREY BROWN:

"My subject is war and the pity of war. The poetry is in the pity." The words of Wilfred Owen in 1918. A few months after writing them at age 25, Owen was killed in battle in France just four days before the end of World War I. His parents learned of his death as armistice bells rang in their hometown in England. In the history books, or even reading today's newspaper, war can seem impersonal, involving millions of men and machines.

But at an exhibition here in London's Imperial War Museum, war is very personal. The stuff a soldier carried in his pocket as he was killed, the words he wrote to describe the horror of life and death in the trenches of World War I. "Anthem for Doomed Youth"– the title comes from a poem by Wilfred Owen– tells the story of 12 soldier-poets. All fought and seven died in what was and is still called the Great War. On display are personal effects: boots, medal a map of Belgium from the coat of Julian Grenfell, killed in May 1915, still stained with his blood. Sketches of dead rats in the trenches, by David Jones, an artist as well as poet, who survived the war. A pocket watch stopped forever at 7:36 A.M., the exact moment a shell exploded near Philip Edward Thomas on April 9, 1917. His body was found intact. His heart, like the watch, had stopped. Above all, the exhibition offers the words of these men from letters and poems. Penny Ritchie Calder is a curator at the Imperial War Museum.

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