On Saturday 1 November 2014 Gateways' Professor Mark Connelly introduced an evening of readings of original works of literature inspired by the Great War at the SaveAs Writers awards ceremony in Canterbury.
Entitled ‘The Bigger Picture: Reflections on the Great War’, the international competition was aimed at both poets and prose-writers and attracted entries from all over the world, including the USA, Denmark and India.
Professor Connelly presented a fascinating consideration of First World War poetry and its relationship to contemporary culture. He showed how historical fact challenges modern assumptions about Britain’s war poets. For instance, in the early decades of the 20th century, Rudyard Kipling enjoyed celebrity status while the now-renowned Wilfred Owen remained relatively unknown and unpopular, the initial editions of his poems only selling a few hundred copies.
The first part of the evening included performances from well-known Kentish poets: Abegail Morley, Geraldine Paine and Jo Field who had been specially commissioned to write poems for the occasion. Members of the SaveAs Writers group also presented readings from their own work.
Read a full account of the event here: www.kent-life.co.uk
