Wilfred Owen and the Manchester Regiment: Later during his time in France he worked on rhyming patterns which are characteristic of his poetry. His early influences were the so called ‘Romantic poets’ such as Keats. Wilfred was interested in poetry from an early age and experimented with verse. The family returned again to Birkenhead for his father’s job as stationmaster at Woodside Station and back to Shrewsbury in 1907.Īfter leaving school he became a teaching assistant and in 1913 he went to France for two years to work as a language tutor at the Berlitz School of Languages in Bordeaux.

Initially the family lived in a house owned by his grandfather but after his death the family lived in Birkenhead then moved to Shrewsbury. Wilfred Edward Salter Owen was born on 18 March 1893 in Oswestry, Shropshire. The first published volume of Wilfred Owen’s poems with an introduction by Siegfried Sassoon – image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons Only 5 of his poems were published in his lifetime and after his death his drafts were brought together and published in two different editions by his friend, mentor and fellow war poet Siegfried Sassoon. Most of the poems for which he is now famous were written in a short period of creativity between August 1917 and September 1918. Through his poetry he wanted to speak up for the men in his care and show what he called “The Pity of War”. Owen was horrified by the suffering and ending of so many lives in a war that didn’t to him seem to have much function or purpose. Owen was an Officer in the 2nd Battalion of the Manchester Regiment and as Tameside Museums & Galleries hold the Manchester Regiment collections it seemed only fitting that we should remember this occasion connected to one of the most passionate and eloquent voices of his time. The Poetry is in the Pity.'ĭecember 2020 marks 100 years of the publication of ‘Poems’ the first volume of poetry by the celebrated First World War poet Wilfred Owen. Wilfred Owen – 100 years on… “My subject is War and the Pity of War.

Down and Out by Wilfred De'Ath