6.+Experience+of+War

This lesson requires you to gain an understanding of the life Wilfred Owen led while at war in France in 1917.

The following is the poem //Futility// by Wilfred Owen

Move him into the sun— Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields unsown. Always it awoke him, even in France, Until this morning and this snow. If anything might rouse him now The kind old sun will know. Think how it wakes the seeds— Woke, once, the clays of a cold star. Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides Full-nerved,—still warm,—too hard to stir? Was it for this the clay grew tall? —O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth's sleep at all?

What is the tone of the poem? What poetic techniques has Owen used?**
 * What is this poem about?

The following is an extract fro a letter that Wilfred Owen wrote to his mother in 1917...

//"I can see no excuse for deceiving you about these last four days. I have suffered seventh hell. – I have not been at the front. – I have been in front of it. – I held an advanced post, that is, a "dug-out" in the middle of No Man's Land.We had a march of three miles over shelled road, then nearly three along a flooded trench. After that we came to where the trenches had been blown flat out and had to go over the top. It was of course dark, too dark, and the ground was not mud, not sloppy mud, but an octopus of sucking clay, three, four, and five feet deep, relieved only by craters full of water. Men have been known to drown in them."//



Using Futility as a model and what you have seen in the the extract and photo above; write a short poem that explores the way you might have felt to be in this situation.

You can use free verse or a rhyming pattern, it is up to you. Try to include at least one example of figurative language such as the metaphor Owen used above;"an octopus of sucking clay" to describe the muddy trenches.

Think about the 5 senses used to describe situations. What does it look, smell, sound, taste, feel like? What kind of mood are you going to create? What kind of tone are you going to use? (Sorrowful? Hopeful? Courageous?)

You can write your poem on your wikipage, on your discussion board or in a word doc linked to your page somewhere.