Mametz Wood Flashcards
What does the poet say about writing this poem?
“I wrote this next poem, Mametz Wood, when I went to the Somme battlefield… while I was there they uncovered a shallow grave of twenty Allied soldiers who had been buried very, very quickly but whoever had buried them had taken the time to actually link their arms, arm-in- arm, and when I saw a photograph of this grave I just knew that it was one of those images that had burned itself onto my mind and I knew that I would want to write about it eventually.”
What was the Mametz Wood?
7th July 1916 - scene of fierce fighting during the Battle of the Somme - one of the bloodiest battles of WW1
Soldiers of 38th Welsh Division commanded to take Mametz Wood from Germans
Generals thought it would only take few hrs
Lasted 5 days and although Welsh succeeded - 4000 casualties + 600 dead
Bravery and sacrifice never really acknowledged
farmers
farmers found them - / the wasted young
They died before they had the real chance to experience life
chit
A chit of bone, the china plate of a should blade
Ch sound - delicate piece of material
sentinel
the earth stands sentinel
Earth has not changed much since then
twenty
This morning, twenty men buried in one long grave
mosaic
a broken mosaic of bone linked arm in arm
boots
in boots that outlasted them
The boots lasted longer than them - shows how horrible this war was
unearthing
the notes they have sung, / have only now, with this unearthing / slipped from their absent tongues
They have only been given a voice now - so long since they died
