The Soldiers' Poet
Saturday 18 November 2006 22:15-22:45 (Radio 3)
Wilfred Owen wrote that he was a 'poets' poet'. He also wrote, in the preface to War Poems, 'Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War'. He is, then, a soldiers' poet.
In the concluding programme of Wilfred Owen Week, serving soldiers - including one who joined as a boy soldier, a woman corporal, a major who, like Owen himself, was awarded the Military Cross, and General Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff - each choose an Owen poem to read.
They speak of the impact it has on them, and on soldiers who have served in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Sierra Leone and Iraq.
