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JOINCULTURE
Reading Owen has really changed my perspective towards First World War. I do not think I changed my mind because of the topic, but because of the empathy the poems developed on me. At the beginning, getting to the heart of the poems was somehow difficult. But the more I read them and emptied my mind of political prejudices, the understanding of the soldier’s lives became easier.
The squad image that my teenager readings had built in my mind changed towards the representation of individual heroes whose bodies had stories and emotions to talk about, but that unfortunately, had been cut off. To put it clearly and succinctly, Owen made me think carefully on the volunteering soldiers, particularly those who died at the very beginning of the battle, right after they entered the battlefield and died out with no more time to think of their dreams. In Owen’s words: “Those who die as cattle” (Anthem for doomed youth, 1917)
introduction: Cita
I realised I had to devote more time to those poems so I started to do some extra readings. Through the research I did, I luckily found other authors whose work suggested me a different approach, among them Simon Armitage or Joe Sacco. But everything went clearer when my poetry teacher proposed us to create an essay or a project dealing with the topic we liked more in the module. I had no doubt to choose First World War. Although deciding the format was something that did not took me too much time, I did not want to write an analysis or an interpretation of an anthology of war poems, I would rather something much more interactive or visual than an academic writing. Therefore, I decided to create a poetic collage where some poems were recited and performed in a video I edited using the Wondershare Filmora programme.
introduction: Cita
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