Poem ~ Owen and Perseus - Sunday , 7 March 1915

Wilfred Owen - detail by Jamie

In Bordeaux, the city of South West

France, arrived the French capital -

To swell from September 1914,

By fifty thousand people - An exiled

Government escaping the German

Advance on Paris, as smart Parisians

Made occupation of the city streets.

Amid them, returned one English man,

Wilfred Owen - from close of a summer

Spent in the Gailleste valley – with his

Summer’s post complete, the teacher

Had two options - find freelance work

Or return home to an England at war.

Matters changed rapidly by a second

Month of war – Owen's hope to take

Courses ended, with universities

Acquisition for military needs  - then

A path took new direction as Owen's

Shifted from Ledgers to Lem's family.

Given two weeks grace in household

Of the Lems, Owen had the chance

To sort and lengthen his French stay.

With Paris coming to Bordeaux

Unfolding days could bring excitement

Even offer the chance of new contacts.

Reminders of war were all about - one

Result being the offer of private tuition

To the nephew of a Senior General.

With employment secured, Owen in

Employ of a donkey cart, conveyed

Ownership of his three trunks to a new

Home as he settled into another venture.

Mid October found this professor

Of elocution seated before a Louis XV

Bureau - beside a large window to let

In plentiful light – days of teaching

Led him out to homes pupils - this

Occupation occupied a poet's mind.

From a past summer's experiences -

Of Bagneres teaching vacation -

Owen had woken to self-awareness.

From pupil Mmes open suggestions

And Tailhade's poetry of attentions

Working to stir his romantic obsession.

Romanticism had invaded the young

Teacher’s mind, in underlying desire

Of decadence and Romantic Agony -

To bubble below the surface – then

November news came of Tailhade

Suddenly shouldering a rifle prompting

Thought how he might enlist to fight.

Owen's letters toyed with ideas of how

If England were truly threatened, that

He would have no hesitation to join.

With autumn's end Paris was freed

Of danger – but any return to England

Held risks of German infested seas –

Yet another pupil prompted his stay.

Assigned with pupils to teach and guide,

The de la Touche boys proved worthy -

As he told his mother that on his return

His future would be discussed with her -

Or a recruiting sergeant. Meanwhile

Further lodgings beckoned in bargain -

Free lodging exchanged for supervision.

Now led Wilfred Owen to Rue Desfourniel.

His time now planned out for four months -

Owen, at home with the boys, would take

Them shooting in woods – the still air

Echoed with training sounds of artillery

Or the flight of a plane above them.

With the new year of 1915, he might

Make plenty of money - he confessed

At the cost of his soul – others thought

Him aimless - still Owen kept his secrets.

Owen had felt, after experiences of religion,

That an only course for him was as poet -

Being 'the fullest, largest, liveable life.'

In reaction to his neglect of this subject

Set him to work an idea of a long poem,

In the story of Perseus - A hero born

Of a mother's confinement, a tale to take

Long allegorical walks in dark woods -

There, a desire of Perseus reflected war.

Its Completion though remained a dream.

With self reflection, perhaps for Owen

Such an epic could only be about poetry,

Sexuality and unavoidably war's subject.

An unwritten script populated with cures,

Formed decadent ideas, classical statues

And Greek love - all stayed a fragment.

The project remained in the poet's mind

But as a resource for future compositions

And underlying imagery - the Perseus epic

By Owen, fragmented by surviving family.

Possibly deciphering likely undertones

Of blurred beasts in a war poet's book.

Hibberd, D., 2002. Wilfred Owen – A New Biography. London. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Ch 9.

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Poem ~ Wilfred Owen, Professor of Elocution - Sunday, 25 October 1914

 Wilfred Owen

Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Owen#mediaviewer/File:Wilfred_Owen_plate_from_Poems_(1920).jpg [Accessed on: 15 November 2014]


A professor of elocution, a young British man

Of twenty one, was invited as a tutor of English.

His client, being a Parisian lady, Mme Leger,

Was to spend the month of August in 1914,

In the foothills of the Pyrenees - near the town

Of Bagneres de Bigorre - The young Professor

Wilfred Owen, had originated from Shropshire.

Arriving at the station Of Bagneres de Bigorre,

Mr Owen, alongside a well-travelled trunk of green,

To be met by a Donkey cart, Mr Leger and his child.

A shy Nenette, giving the young man a slow smile.

A journey led to the villa of a mile from the town.

The Donkey cart carrying their visitor along a narrow

Valley, to where a miniature baroque mansion,

And white balustrades, nestled amid mountain trees.

A daily routine quickly became the norm for Mr Owen.

In order to earn his keep – he gave after breakfast

Madam Leger her two hours of conversational practice

The purpose of lessons to prepare for a Canadian trip,

In order for her to converse more easily with customers.

The lady’s interest of her teacher ran much deeper

Than just learning English – In the depth of fascination,

Mme Ledger eagerly told the professor that he should,

Behave to her, and the house, exactly as his wished.

Having bought himself some gentlemanly items,

In Bordeaux such as a straw hat, a few bow ties

And a walking stick. Wilfred Owen now grew a little

Moustache, in processing his young man’s image.

Proud to have worked his way forward as a teacher

He wrote, confiding emotions, in words to his mother.

Of how in France to be feeling - experiencing, ‘his life

As a lived out book.’ Yet the letter was never sent.

After the morning sessions, Wilfred was free to do,

As he wished and he spent time in Bagneres,

or out climbing looking to the heights of the Pyrenees.

Soon he took up a secret habit of bathing – finding

A hidden pool fed by cool waters of the mountains.

Developing a tan, sitting beneath a Autumn sun –

With time spent sitting happily in the garden, smoking.

Owen’s idle moments, expanding into idle theories,

Of his designing an idealised fantasy of a country,

House – filled with people whom he might live -

Or invite, inspired him to compose a start of a poem.

September and a month, having passed since war

Had been declared, played upon the professor’s mind,

And of what might be the outcome of his own role

In the European war, as it was then being called.

Back in Bordeaux, Wilfred had looked to Spain’s

Neutrality - to think if that might be an option to go.

With noises from the North from Britain and France

Being stirred up into total war seemed a distance.

In the quiet area of Bagneres town, news carried

To them of war by the papers, yet isolation grew thin -

As this 21 year old Professor read of many German

Atrocities, to share within deep conversations on war.

In the drawing closer of France’s situation, the men

Of Bagneres began to be called up to the colours.

The towns mothers wept openly for departing sons.

then there came the talk of likely local German spies.

Anyone slightly alien to France seemed a suspect.

As a non-native, Wilfred had to be given a permit

Of police, in order to stay - further taking advice

Not to wear glasses, that made him look Germanic.

Owen looked more French without use of glasses,

As he read each day, of the cancerous spread of war.

Unlike Britain, army service was compulsory in France,

Prompting Wilfred to think he should do something -

So he imagined saving provinces at the Eastern Front.

August had long gone into September and the Legers

Return to Bordeaux was closing in - yet madam’s trip

Not until October, Owen was invited to stay with them,

With Mme’s idea for him to travel with her in the spring.

Canada would have seemed an adventure in spring

Of 1915, yet turns of events saw that door slowly close.

Owen learned of the visiting poet, Laurant Tailhade,

To Bagneres, to hold lectures upon the gift of writing.

Furthermore Tailhede was one of the Leger’s friends-

An encounter with a living poet would be monumental,

For the aspiring Wilfred Owen - from their introduction,

The poet was to influence Owen’s view, with exception

Of his pacifists’ views – the guidelines were to run deep.

Perhaps the conflict of pacifism, and desire of freedom

Fighting, embroiled some of the war poet’s oppositions.

An underlying need of experience, to be a man in war,

And as observer conveying suffering in his compositions.

Yet the fermentation continued in Bagneres, as Tailhade

Arrived on 27 August, for lunch at the holiday home.

The poet is likely to have seemed quite old to Wilfred,

formed from years of indulgence, drugs and absinthe.

Tailhade, being short of funds, was to stay at the villa.

Taking a great liking to the dark haired Englishman,

Laurant Tailhade poured over him, shown as he wrote

A Sonnet to Owen –flattered, Wilfred gave no response.

Admiration from a man of letters was yet to be treasured

A shared craft of literary gifts was to create a friendship.

Yet Owen knowing his own mind, kept it on a level plane

As he did with Mme ledger – a desire to write overriding all.

With October came changes like a ladder to the future

Days of August and September sun faded into October

And a return to Bordeaux – having played with the idea

Of returning home – with the ‘Affair Leger’ finally settled

The new capital of France where excitement brimmed.

To make use of his time in France, Owen talked to meet

People of interest, while seeking out a stable of pupils;

With Madam departure he moved from the Legers,

To the Lems household, to little more than an attic room.

Then another change found Wilfred a tutors place from

A wife of a senior General, for her nephew a Viscount.

Again a Donkey cart employed the move, of now three

Trunks, as he found himself in grander surroundings.

As October unfolded, it seemed that Owen had arrived.

Hibberd, D., 2002. Wilfred Owen – A New Biography. London. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Ch 8-9.

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