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76:. While his men were in stationed at Burniston Road Barracks a mile north-west of the town, Owen and other officers were billeted in the Clarence Gardens (now the Clifton) Hotel; Owen was the mess secretary. Owen had a unique room in the hotel: he occupied the five-windowed turret on the 5th floor, directly overlooking the sea.
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intrude on his somewhat romantic meditation: "Wrote a poem on the
Colliery Disaster: but I get mixed up with the War at the end. It is short, but oh! sour." The gently hissing coals recall the moans of the dying miners "writhing for air"; Owen intertwines their deaths with those of soldiers at the
138:
front, imagining charred bodies reduced to ash. Owen laments that though people over the coming years will live on peacefully and doze by fires, their coals will have been formed of the toils of the dead soldiers and miners, now buried under the earth and forgotten.
103:"hard-handed, hard-headed miners, dogged, loutish, ugly. (But I would trust them to advance under fire and to hold their trench;) blond, coarse, ungainly, strong, 'unfatiguable', unlovely, Lancashire soldiers, Saxons to the bone.
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was published on 26 January 1918, one of only five poems by Owen published in his lifetime. The cheque arrived on 14 February. Owen, in one of his many letters to his mother, said he was "satisfied with the Two
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education) with working-class miner types. Aged nineteen, he had met a
Northumberland pit-lad who made a particular impression on him at a nonconformist convention in
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in 1912. Also, many of the men in his platoon had worked down the
Lancashire pits before the war: in 1916, Owen had described his men as
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The opening stanzas evoke the poet gazing into the fire imagining a primeval forest older than myth, "before the
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he uses phrases like "smothered ferns" and "frond-forests", redolent of the imprints of fossil plants in coal.
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45:
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Gibson, John (2001). "Mother's boy and stationmaster's son". In Quinn, Patrick J.; Trout, Steven (eds.).
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In addition, Owen was a keen geologist who had collected rocks and minerals since his youth, and in
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explosion, including 40 pit-lads under 16. Owen was unusually well-acquainted (for someone with a
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in the evening of the day he finished it. The proofs arrived while Owen was preparing to attend
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where he had been recovering from a shell-shock. Owen wrote the poem in direct response to the
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and a short spell of leave, Owen rejoined his army unit (the 3/5th battalion the
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of 12 January 1918, in which 156 men and boys lost their lives as a result of a
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The four other poems by Owen which appeared in print during his lifetime were
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For a projected volume of his work, Owen gave the poem the subtitle:
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Sonnet On Seeing a Piece of our Heavy
Artillery Brought into Action
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The
Literature of the Great War reconsidered: beyond modern memory
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21:
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32:, scene of the colliery disaster which occasioned Owen's poem
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130:
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The Iron, Steel and Coal
Industry of North Staffordshire
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in which 156 people (155 miners, 1 rescue worker) died.
635:. Vol. I: The poems. London: Chatto & Windus.
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170: From Time's old cauldron,
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219: While songs are crooned;
208:The years will stretch their hands, well-cheered
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215: With which we groaned,
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504:(revised ed.). Oxford University Press.
188: Bones without number.
602:. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions.
530:
460:
379:
223: Left in the ground.
217:Whose warmth shall lull their dreaming lids,
210: By our life's ember;
179: And moans down there
174: Or men had children.
161: And smothered ferns,
177:But the coals were murmuring of their mine,
152: A sigh of the coal,
48:in January 1918, a few weeks after leaving
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206: In rooms of amber;
201: Peace lies indeed.
186:And I saw white bones in the cinder-shard,
143:How the future will forget the dead in war
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192: And few remember.
183: Writhing for air.
165: Before the fauns.
819:The Parable of the Old Man and the Young
221:But they will not dream of us poor lads,
197: Of war, and died
168:My fire might show steam-phantoms simmer
156: It might recall.
133:". But his traumatic experiences on the
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20:
625:
617:Owen, Harold; Bell, John, eds. (1967).
533:"Wilfred Owen: Journey to the Trenches"
448:
991:
616:
412:
373:
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204:Comforted years will sit soft-chaired,
195:I thought of all that worked dark pits
172:Before the birds made nests in summer,
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361:
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181:Of boys that slept wry sleep, and men
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199:Digging the rock where Death reputes
163:Frond-forests, and the low sly lives
150:There was a whispering in my hearth,
83:in under an hour in response to the
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555:. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
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483:
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258:that half-hour's work brought me."
13:
678:autograph manuscript and full text
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400:
213:The centuries will burn rich loads
14:
1030:
650:
531:Farley, Paul (10 November 2006).
632:The Complete Poems and Fragments
595:
436:
190:Many the muscled bodies charred,
907:I Saw His Round Mouth's Crimson
619:Wilfred Owen: Collected Letters
477:
465:
454:
442:
267:
159:I listened for a tale of leaves
154:Grown wistful of a former earth
879:Cramped in that Funnelled Hole
682:First World War poetry archive
526:. London: Chatto & Windus.
502:Wilfred Owen: Selected Letters
430:
418:
406:
394:
367:
355:
343:
245:St. James's Church, Piccadilly
228:
1:
577:Wilfred Owen: a new biography
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59:
886:Elegy in April and September
243:' wedding (on 23 January at
7:
872:At a Calvary near the Ancre
581:. Lanham, MD: Ivan R. Dee.
10:
1035:
657:Clifton Hotel, Scarborough
621:. Oxford University Press.
524:The Poetry of Wilfred Owen
493:
50:Craiglockhart War Hospital
849:
735:
599:The Works of Wilfred Owen
64:After his discharge from
16:1918 poem by Wilfred Owen
1019:Fauns in popular culture
763:Apologia Pro Poemate Meo
687:21 February 2009 at the
669:Wilfred Owen Association
500:Bell, John, ed. (1985).
261:
756:Anthem for Doomed Youth
461:Independent, 2011-11-10
325:Baker, Allan C (2002).
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44:. He wrote the poem in
999:Poetry by Wilfred Owen
596:Kerr, Douglas (1994).
233:Owen sent the poem to
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114:
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33:
977:With an Identity Disc
900:Has Your Soul Sipped?
840:Wild with All Regrets
680:at Oxford University
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110:
101:
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791:Dulce et Decorum est
112:Fern fossil in coal
85:Minnie Pit Disaster
70:Manchester Regiment
54:Minnie Pit Disaster
449:Stallworthy (1983)
115:
34:
1014:World War I poems
986:
985:
609:978-1-85326-423-8
588:978-1-56663-487-8
562:978-0-333-76459-6
511:978-0-19-281914-7
413:Collected letters
374:Collected letters
350:Collected letters
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826:Spring Offensive
770:Arms and the Boy
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627:Stallworthy, Jon
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571:Hibberd, Dominic
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472:Selected letters
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389:Selected letters
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362:Selected letters
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329:. Irwell Press.
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689:Wayback Machine
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537:The Independent
520:Blunden, Edmund
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40:" is a poem by
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914:The Last Laugh
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659:for sale, 2011
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651:External links
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629:, ed. (1983).
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93:grammar school
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26:The Minnie Pit
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1009:British poems
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805:Insensibility
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777:The Dead-Beat
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401:Gibson (2001)
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135:Western Front
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66:Craiglockhart
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30:Staffordshire
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942:The Next War
935:A New Heaven
927:
812:Mental Cases
737:
729:Wilfred Owen
673:
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542:26 September
540:. Retrieved
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523:
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439:, pp. 104-5.
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279:The Next War
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42:Wilfred Owen
37:
35:
18:
850:Other poems
437:Kerr (1994)
229:Publication
74:Scarborough
46:Scarborough
1004:1918 poems
993:Categories
921:The Letter
642:0701127155
312:References
302:The Nation
236:The Nation
60:Background
486:, p. 367.
474:, p. 309.
427:, p. 104.
364:, p. 295n
284:The Hydra
79:He wrote
970:Training
798:Futility
784:Disabled
685:Archived
573:(2003).
415:, p. 395
403:, p. 202
391:, p. 312
376:, p. 516
352:, p. 508
296:Futility
89:firedamp
963:To Eros
893:The End
749:A Terre
667:at the
494:Sources
256:Guineas
97:Keswick
928:Miners
865:Asleep
740:(1920)
674:Miners
664:Miners
639:
606:
585:
559:
508:
333:
287:, and
251:Miners
119:Miners
81:Miners
38:Miners
738:Poems
725:Poems
262:Notes
131:fauns
72:) in
858:1914
637:ISBN
604:ISBN
583:ISBN
557:ISBN
544:2011
506:ISBN
331:ISBN
293:and
277:and
125:Poem
727:by
247:).
28:in
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