Armistice Day – 11 November – allows us to reflect on the heavy price we all pay for war. Of course, this year is especially poignant as it marks the 100th anniversary of the day when both Britain and France buried their ‘unknown soldiers’ with state honors.
In our collective consciousness, the First World War encapsulates the agony and ecstasy of war. Our understanding of that war comes from poets.
No other war, before or since, has been captured by poetry in the same way. All the great poets of the First World War would have been described as queer.
They loved men. But at the time, intimacy between men was a crime. These queer poets were immersed in the male world of war, torn between love and war.