Richard Aldington’s response to his war
Conference – Saturday 2 December 2023
The venue is Northeastern University London, Devon House, 58 St Katharine’s Way, London E1W 1LP. It is fully accessible.
The registration fee is £75 and covers the cost of venue hire, tea and coffee, lunch, and a copy of Exile and Other Poems.
It will be possible to attend and present remotely; there will be a charge of £10 for online attendance. There are also options to order a copy of Exile when you book online.
Further details at link below
We would like to say Happy Birthday to our President Michael Longley on 27 July 2022.
It is with the most profound sorrow that we have to announce the sudden death on 7 May 2022, Andy Thompson, which has come as a great shock. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife and two children, of whom he was immensely proud.
For many years Andy was a teacher and Headteacher who led tours for his students. On his retirement, he founded Eyewitness Tours and continued to travel to the battlefields of Europe, leading tours for groups large and small over many years. He was with a group on the battlefields of Normandy shortly before his death. His tours with the Western Front Association and the War Poets Association were a highlight of each year,
Andy was a member of the Guild of Battlefield Guides and had been awarded the inaugural ‘Old Bill Award’ for his enthusiasm and cheerfulness in times of difficulty, a thoroughly deserved accolade for the many hours of selfless time he had given to the Guild. He organised the yearly Christmas Dinner, helped overseas members travel to the AGM and gave selflessly to anyone who asked.
He was a member of the committee of the War Poets Association for many years.
We have created a Remembrance page for Andy. There is a link in the main menu above to get to that page. We welcome contributions from members of the Association – photos, memories of tours etc – to add to the contributions on the Remembrance page. A means of sending contributions is on the Remembrance page. Thank you.
Andy is greatly missed and I am sure he will enjoy leading groups across new battlefields.
We have information about a new publication.
I am a widely published poet from Newcastle. My audio piece, a sequence of poems titled The Stone Men of Newcastle, was recently broadcast on BBC Introducing Arts with Huw Stephens on BBC Radio 6 Music, and is now available on BBC Sounds until the 7th of June. I was wondering if you would be willing to promote The Stone Men of Newcastle on the War Poets Association website, newsletter, social media, or any other appropriate channels you may have?
The Stone Men of Newcastle is a sequence of poems about the city’s statues and their place in contemporary Newcastle. The audio piece features poems that reflect on war memorials, including ‘The Response 1914’ and the statue of St George and the Dragon at Eldon Square, and war poetry, specifically the work of Sidney Keyes. It was commissioned by New Creatives, a talent development scheme supported by Arts Council England and BBC Arts, and delivered by Tyneside Cinema. The sequence was performed by prolific Geordie voice actor Dan Pye, and stage and screen actress Stacey Ghent. The lead audio production partner was Naked Productions. I have attached a press pack with full details of the audio piece.
Here is a link to the programme on BBC Sounds:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0016ybf (The Stone Men of Newcastle is featured 4-18 minutes into the programme)
I gain distribution rights to the piece on the 15th of June 2022, so if you would be interested in publishing the audio piece directly, instead of, or in addition to, promoting the BBC programme, I can send you the audio file for publication from this date. I can also send accompanying print versions of the poems if you would like to publish one alongside the audio piece.
My previous work has often engaged with war poetry; I won the Poetry Society’s Timothy Corsellis Young Critics Prize 2018 for my essay on Second World War poetry by Sidney Keyes, John Jarmain, and Henry Reed, and my poem ‘Dona Nobis Pacem (for Britten’s War Requiem)’, responding to Wilfred Owen’s poetry and the War Requiem by Benjamin Britten it inspired, was published in The Wilfred Owen Association Journal.
If you have any questions, or would like further information, I am happy to correspond further. Many thanks.
War Poetry Review 2021
The new copy of the War Poetry Review is now available to members only. As with all other editions access is via the War Poetry Review link above or the link in the menu bar above which will take you to the password access page. To get the password please contact David Worthington, who will happily provide the password to all paid up members.
This year’s Review is full of excellent articles and poems. Essays include Charles Mundye on Wilfred Owen in Scarborough and Fran Brearton on Irish Soldier Poets of the First World War. Leo van Bergen writes about the extraordinary exhibition ‘War/Raw’ by Dutch artist Tonie van Marle. There is a profile by John Howlett of the Second World War RAF poet John Pudney, who was extremely famous during the war for his poem about a fighter pilot, ‘For Johnny’. We have poems by Milena Williamson, Chris Hunter and Alexander Thymmons. Most exciting of all we are publishing for the first time a previously unseen poem by Ivor Gurney, which is why we feature him on the cover of this year’s journal.
Trauma, Primitivism and the First World War
The Making of Frank Prewett
Joy Porter
Please follow the link below for a 35% discount code from Bloomsbury which you may wish to use if you are interested in buying Trauma, Primitivism and the First World War.
The War Poets Association had an evening of reading poems from the First World War.
Readers included Michael Longley, Edna Longley, Tim Kendall, Bel Mooney, Fran Brearton, Steve Douglas, Antony Owen and Paul O’Prey.
Poets featured will include Edward Thomas, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Mary Borden, Robert Graves and Isaac Rosenberg.
The event was held via Zoom on Thursday 26th November.
There is now a link to catch up to this event, for members only, available on the War Poetry Review page to which there is a link in the menu above. Once on the page the whole event, which was recorded, can be watched again – or if you missed it, for the first time.
If you would like to hear more about the War Poets Association and forthcoming events, including an expert-led, poetry-focussed tour of Western Front battlefields in October 2021, please remember to click the ‘keep me updated’ box when you register with Eventbrite. That enables you to receive update emails from the War Poets Association.
If you are not a member of the WPA please consider joining. Go to our website: www.warpoets.org
War Poetry Review 2020
The new copy of the War Poetry Review is now available to members only. As with all other editions access is via the War Poetry Review link in the menu bar above which will take you to the password access page. To get the password please contact David Worthington, who will happily provide the password to all paid up members.
Odyssey TV – The Pity of War : Poets at the Front – Sassoon & Owen
We have received news of a new DVD on War Poets available from 28 September 2020. Follow the links below for more information.
Pity of War Poets at the Front documentary DVD Press Release
About Us…
The War Poets Association promotes interest in the work, life and historical context of poets whose subject is the experience of war. It is interested in war poets of all periods and nationalities, with a primary focus on conflicts since 1914 – mainly the First World War, Spanish War 1936-39, Second World War and Ireland. There are already many societies dedicated to individual war poets; one of the WPA’s aims is to work with these and others to help promote joint activities and events of mutual interest.
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