“I try not to remember these things now.
Let dread hark back for one word only: how”
– from The Sentry by Wilfred Owen
My Dreams Still (The Sentry) – In a letter to his Mother, dated January 1917, Wilfred Owen wrote of his experiences in a dug-out in No Man’s Land saying “I have suffered seventh hell”. This harrowing experience resulted in Owen writing The Sentry. This moving poem focuses on the fate of a soldier, a sentry, blinded by a ‘whizz-bang’, and Owen’s haunting, pitying recollection of the event as the soldier tumbles in to the dug-out.
Wilfred Owen was killed by machine gun fire while leading his men across the Sambre-Oise canal on 4th November 1918, one week before the signing of the Armistice on the 11th November 1918. This engraving forms part of a body of work commissioned by the Folio Society to accompany a new publication of Owen’s poetry published 2018 to mark the centenary of Owen’s death and Armistice Day. More engravings from this series can be viewed here.
I hope this work My Dreams Still (The Sentry) in some way helps to mark the event, the war, Wilfred Owen and the tragic loss of life – Neil Bousfield 2018
