What do you think this poem will be about?What clues are you given from the language?

Mametz WoodOwen Sheers

• What do you think happened there?• How do you think it

ended? How do you know this?

The Somme River

Mametz Wood was the scene of fierce fighting, it was one of the bloodiest battles of the First World War.

The name comes from how the soldiers were ordered to take (cover) at Mametz Wood, the largest area of trees on the battlefield.

Introduction

Read the poem silently…•Where does the poem change tense?•What is happening in the first part, compared to the

second part of the poem?

Other poets who had actively fought in the war had created poems that were a lot more personal, but “Mametz Wood” highlights the fact that eighty-five years later reminders of soldiers' deaths were still very much present and fresh.

Owen Sheers had visited a site of a WW1 battlefield, which then inspired him to write this touching poem. He was struck by how leftovers of the battle were gradually rising to the ground.

Why has it been written?

About the poem itself

•The poem is very prosaic – straight forward, it’s not beating around the bush which shows that Sheers clearly wants to display the sufferings and hardships of the Welsh that fought on the battlefield, which is why his language is quite blatant.

He is trying to highlight the fact that :Although they had succeeded, their bravery was not acknowledged (credited, known etc).

What does this image evoke?

What does this image suggest about death?

Death-macabre

What the poet says...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.

ComparisonFutility – Wilfred Owen's poem – Dulce et Decorum est. Both are about the death of ordinary men in the First World War. They both contrast the images of men and earth and they are both concerned with the memory of the dead.

Annotation Of The Poem

Shows that the soldiers that were fighting on the battlefield, were young men and had not yet even reached adulthood. Young lives have been wasted.

In the opening lines of Mametz wood, Sheers mentioned how the battlefield had gone back to being a farmland and how years later the farmers had found the remains of the soldiers.

It is almost as if the place is trying to get rid of anything that is linked with the war, and trying to return back to its original state.

Someone's finger is evident on the grounds.Imagine the horror of seeing fingers lying around. Also using the word “relic,”(leftover ) as if to say that it has no use now.

There are even bones of dead birds lying around. Shows that absolutely nothing was spared.

A part of a bone lying around.

 A metaphor with the words ‘’a china plate’’ is used to describe a shoulder plate. Which shows that Sheers is trying to signify how fragile everything was (the bones of the dead), and yet here they were, lying on the ground.

How the soldiers were ordered to walk towards the wood, (unaware of the guns that were waiting to fire on them)

Sheers describes the machine guns as “nesting” in the wood, once again using an image related to birds, almost as though the guns belonged among the trees.

Describing the colours of the remains (bones) of the soldiers that are pushing through the surface of the earth.

Sentinel - guard, lookout.creating the impression that the field is almost ‘on guard’.

Earth stands guard, afraid of another brutal battle in which the earth is demolished and there is nothing left of it.

Going back to wounded memories, the idea that it cannot let go of the memories of the war.

Sheers returns to the present time

As though the bits of bone are unfamiliar and need to be pushed up and removed from the soil. Possibly insinuating that the earth doesn’t want to carry the burden of the remains and wants to set them free.

It is a moving/emotional image showing how the men were physically connected, dying together.

A medieval (old fashioned) dance of death. Shows that their lifeless bodies were in some sort of position.

The words “broken mosaic” means that their remains are now broken.

Sheers mentions the soldiers' boots that have had a longer life than their owners.

He goes on to describe the skulls of the soldiers, although not all of them were intact (whole). Not many even had their jaws. Creates a horrible image in your head.

Sheers tries to inform the reader the idea that the soldiers' skeletons appeared to be singing, but that the sound of their voices was not heard until the grave was discovered years later. (Metaphorically speaking)

As if to say, they had not received a voice for many years but had finally gained one years and years later.

Attitudes

Sheers reflects on how the events of that week in 1916 have been buried and forgotten. The bits of bone that are turned up seem just the same as old bits of china – curious leftovers of history.

Sheers highlights the injustice the war had brought, in other words the injustice of history. The poem is trying to offer some kind of justice to the deceased (dead),it is evident that he is trying to give the dead a voice, one they have lacked.

Sheers could have simply retold the historical events of the battle. By approaching the subject in this slightly strange way, though, Sheers highlights the injustice of history, and manages to stir emotions among many readers.