Wilfred Owen

World War 1 Poet

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen who was born in Oswestry in 1893, served with the Manchester Regiment and died in France, November 1918 just before the Armistice. He became known for the poetry that he wrote during World War 1 and it is now one hundred years ago since most of his poems were published, only five were published before his death.

Wilfred was one of four children to Thomas and Susan Owen who moved from Oswestry to Birkenhead, then Shrewsbury and back again. He went to Reading University where he studied Botany and later Old English. Before the war Wilfred Owen spent time in Bordeaux teaching English and French.

On completion of his military training , Wilfred was commissioned as a second Lieutenant in the Manchester Regiment and after suffering from shell-shock spent some time in Edinburgh hospital, where he met another poet, Siegfried Sassoon and was very influenced by his writings. He returned to active service in France in 1918. He was awarded the Military Cross for leading the 2nd Battalion Manchesters, overpowering the enemy in the village of Joncourt.

Wilfred was killed in action on 4^th November 1918 while crossing the Sambre-Oise canal in Northern France. His parents received the telegram informing them of his death on the day the Armistice was signed to end the war.

Harold Owen, Wilfred’s brother, inherited all Wilfred’s work and his wife donated them to the University of Oxford’s English Faculty Library in 1975.

Poems

One of Wilfred Owen’s most well known poems is ‘Dulce et Decorum Est‘, meaning -‘It is Sweet and Fitting’. You can listen to a reading of the poem here-https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decorum-est

The Send Off
Down the close darkening lanes they sang their way
To the siding shed,
And lined the train with faces grimly gay.
Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray
As men’s are, dead.
Dull porters watched them, and a casual tramp
Stood staring hard,
Sorry to miss them from the upland camp.
Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp
Winked to the guard.
So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they were sent.
Nor there if yet mock what women meant
Who gave them flowers.
Shall they return to beatings of great bells
In wild train-loads?
A few, few, too few for drums and yells,
May creep back, silent, to still village wells
Up half-known roads.

From 'Owen the Poet by Domini Hibberd

Further reading –

Wilfred Owen – Jon Stallworthy

Wilfred Owen Selected Letters- Edited by John Bell -(who worked with Harold Owen, Wilfred’s brother, on editing the collection of letters).

Wilfred Owen, A New Biography – Dominic Hibberd 2002.

Owen The Poet – Dominic Hibberd 1986

Jill Morris