POETRY WORKSHOP
WAR MEMORIAL
WW1 continues to inspire poets, and Alison Chisholm is impressed with the impact of a poem recalling the Somme
The First World War inspired a generation of young poets to write about its horrors with an immediacy and precision that the subject of earlier conflicts had not embraced. Maybe this was to do with the fact that 1914-1918 saw the introduction of trench warfare, and the appalling conditions and staggering numbers of casualties associated with it. Poets like Owen, Sassoon, Graves and Binyon ensured that the horrors would never be forgotten; but can today’s poets still bring them to light?
Hell’s Quagmire was written by a man whose pedigree suggests that he is the right person to try. Keith Jeffries, who lives in Tenerife in the Canary Islands, was born into a military family, having parents and grandparents who had served. He himself saw active service in the Army, spending ten years in the Intelligence Corps in Gibraltar, Germany, Northern Ireland and on secondment in the Sultanate of Oman. A career change saw him ordained as a priest in the Church of England, involving him in various posts before he retired.