Keele Books of Life
Bruce Summers is a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at the Princess Royal Hospital and lead tutor for Medical Humanities at the University of Keele Medical School.
He has a BA honours degree in the Humanities with a particular interest in the History of Art but he is an avid reader of poetry and in particular the works of Edward Thomas, Roger McGough, Philip Larkin and Wilfred Owen.
In Memoriam
( Easter 1915)
by
Edward Thomas
When the First War broke out Edward Thomas had doubts about joining up. In 1915 he did enlist, and was soon promoted to the position of officer.
Before travelling to France, Thomas wrote all of the poems for which he is now famous, he was killed almost as soon as he saw action, killed in the Battle of Arras, 1917.
Aubade
by
Philip Larkin
Born in Coventry in 1922, Larkin was anti-social in the extreme and a great lover of American jazz, he never married and worked as a librarian in Hull, where he died on December 2, 1985.
Vinegar
by
Roger McGough
Roger McGough is arguably the most famous of the Liverpool Poets.
Born in 1937, his poetry first reached a mass audience in the Penguin Modern Poets collection The Mersey Sound and went on to sell over a million copies.
.
Futility
by
Wilfred Owen
Born in Oswestry in 1893, Owen he began writing poetry at ther age of 19. He volunteered for service during the 1914 - 1918 World War and is recongised as one of the greatets of htat generation of War Poets.He was killed in action on November 4th 1918, sewven days before the end of the war.
Comeclose and Sleepnow
by
Roger McGough
McGough believes a poet is anyone who writes poetry, and a poem is that which is written by a poet. He believes that you become a poet the moment you write your first poem. "I know that sounds pretentious, and I remember Auberon Waugh sort of throwing a chair at me for saying that, but it happens to be true."
Musee de Beaux Arts
by
W H Auden
Auden (1907-1973) is considered to be one of the most influential voices in 20th Century poetry.He published over four hundred poems in a breathtaking range of styles, in adddition to writing plays and critical essays.