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Black History Month 2018 | Black History Month Celebrating the Great Black British Achievers

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Black History Month 2018 - Official Black History Month

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Black History Month Magazine 2018 and website are the central point of focus for a nationwide celebration of Black History Month throughout Britain

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Children of Blood & Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

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National Read A Book Day

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1892

An Iowa farmer, John Froelich, takes farming to a whole new level when he invents the first gasoline-powered tractor. He cobbled together parts from other machines, including a steam-powered engine to bring his invention to life. Once he did, he created the Waterloo Gasoline Traction Engine Company. On this day, he sold his first tractor.

1891

When a stabbing victim is brought to City Hospital in St. Louis, Henry C. Dalton saves his life. The Professor of Surgery at Marion Sims College of Medicine used a surgical suture on the pericardium saving the man's life. The procedure is considered by many to be one of the very first heart surgeries.

1819

Many inventions contributed to mass production. One of those inventions was a lathe capable of copying a pattern. It was invented by Thomas Blanchard and he received the patent for his lathe on this day in history.

1839

The Cherokee Nation signs its constitution. Delegates from both the Old Settlers and the Ross Party signed the document. Some of the signers included John Ross, George Lowrey, Goingsnake, John Looney and Sequoyah.

1848

Frederick Douglas presides over the National Convention of Black Freeman. The three-day conference was held in Cleveland Ohio.

1899

In a facility located in Kent, Washington, the first cases of evaporated milk were produced. Called Carnation Sterilized Cream at the time, the product was produced by the Pacific Coast Condensed Milk Company which later became the Carnation Milk Company.

1901

Joining the crowds at Buffalo's Pan-American Exposition, President William McKinley would greet his constituents one last time. Despite added security and Secret Service agents, Leon Czolgosz approached the President in the Temple of Music. The assassin raised his pistol, firing two shots into the President's abdomen. McKinley died later that day and became the third assassinated U.S. President.

1916

Before Clarence Saunders opened his first Piggly Wiggly in 1916, grocery shopping was much like going to the pharmacy. Patrons took a list to the store and the grocer filled the order. But with the founding of Piggly Wiggly, the first self-service grocery opened in Memphis, Tennessee. Shoppers could browse at their leisure and find the items best suited to their needs. When they were ready, they brought the items to the clerk for payment.

1920

Around Detroit, pugilist fans gathered around their radios for the first-ever broadcast of a prizefight. Radio Station WWJ broadcast the event between Jack Dempsey and Billy Miske. The fight lasted three rounds when Miske dropped Dempsey with a KO.

1991

After 67 years, Leningrad changes its name back to St. Petersburg.

2009

The world's largest paddling of ducks raced down the River Thames during the Great British Duck Race. The world record event raised money for several charities.

2010

The King's Speech premieres at the Telluride Film Festival. Starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, and Helena Bonham Carter, the biographical film follows King George VI through his journey to overcome his stutter. The film would go on to win four Oscars and numerous other accolades.

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1892 An Iowa farmer, John Froelich, takes farming to a whole new level when he invents the first gasoline-powered tractor. He cobbled together parts from other machines, including a steam-powered engine to bring his invention to life. Once he did, he created the Waterloo Gasoline Traction Engine Company.

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Prodigy: Franklin recorded her first album, Songs of Faith, when she was just 14. © Getty

How should we remember Aretha Franklin - as a musician or a civil rights hero? The "Queen of Soul" died last week. She was one of the most celebrated and influential singers in history.

"You can hear Aretha's influence across the landscape of American music, no matter the genre... If I'm stranded on a desert island, and have 10 records to take, I know she's in the collection. For she'll remind me of my humanity. What's essential in all of us. And she just sounds so damn good."

In 2016, Barack Obama wrote these words about Aretha Franklin, the Detroit diva and undisputed "Queen of Soul". On Thursday, she died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 76.

Tributes poured in. Lady Gaga wrote on Twitter that Franklin was an "angel of music". Mariah Carey called her: "The Icon. The ultimate singers' singer."

In a 50-year recording career she racked up a dozen million-selling singles and earned 18 Grammy awards. Rolling Stone magazine rated her as the greatest singer of all time.

Elton John described Franklin's style as "music from the heart, the soul and the church". This reflects her upbringing. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, to a Baptist minister, her family soon moved north, first to Buffalo, and then to Detroit.

It was in Motown where she made her name. She was an instinctive musician, rejecting formal keyboard lessons as a child.

Franklin's music became the sound of the civil rights movement that swept across America during the early stages of her career. Her father was the organiser behind the 1963 Detroit Walk to Freedom. Martin Luther King Jr was a frequent guest at their family home.

Her 1967 song Respect became the anthem of the campaign, and of the feminist movement. "Whenever women heard the record, it was like a tidal wave of sororal unity", the song's producer, Jerry Wexler, said.

As she rose in popularity, Franklin did not abandon her activism. Her contract in the 1960s included a clause stating that she would never perform for a segregated audience.

Despite her turbulent personal life, Franklin remained relevant until the very end. She sang the American patriotic song My Country, 'Tis of Thee at Barack Obama's inauguration ceremony in 2009.

Should she be remembered as a political figure or a musical one?

"Icon of all icons"

Franklin is inseparable from the momentous politics of America in the 1960s, say some. Every social movement needs its artists, and as congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis said: "Her music was deepened by her connection to the struggles and the triumphs of the African-American experience."

She was a musician, first and foremost, argue others. Who could forget her "range, power and command, along with the innate ability to burrow into a lyric until she'd found the exact coordinates of its emotional core", as The Washington Post 's obituary put it. Everyone loved her, regardless of their race or politics.

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Aretha: In her voice, we could feel our history

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How should we remember Aretha Franklin - as a musician or a civil rights hero? The "Queen of Soul" died last week. She was one of the most celebrated and influential singers in history. "You can hear Aretha's influence across the landscape of American music, no matter the genre...

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National Poetry Day

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The day nine young students defied racism

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A report released by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) last year showed that in the decade to 2014 the number of disadvantaged schools with mainly black and Hispanic pupils nearly doubled. "Inequitable access to educational opportunity... has robbed our nation's most vulnerable students of learning gains and later life success," wrote US congressman Bobby Scott last year.

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Mainstream poetry has been an alien concept for decades, but a new generation of sassy, topical and social media-savvy poets has found a willing audience...

Even poets used to make jokes about how few people read poetry, but Warsan Shire has achieved something poets rarely used to: her work has found mainstream popularity. Last year, Shire's profile went stratospheric when Beyoncé used her work on the video album for Lemonade. Between the songs about anger, heartbreak and betrayal, she reads work by Shire including For Women Who Are Difficult To Love, The Unbearable Weight Of Staying (The End Of The Relationship) and Nail Technician As Palm Reader. We're used to Queen Bey working with A-list collaborators and all-star producers, but here she was championing a poet whose visceral work encompasses - among many things - sexuality, immigration, politics and being a Muslim woman. The Kenyan-born, Somali- British poet is part of a new generation of 'Instapoets', writers publishing verse primarily on social media and finding audiences far beyond the usual bookshelves.

Shire, 29, who was London's first Young Poet Laureate in 2013, has yet to publish a full-length poetry collection, but is already a sensation and has more than 87,000 followers on Twitter. "No one leaves home unless/home is the mouth of a shark," she wrote in Home, about the life of refugees. "No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land." Those lines have been shared thousands of times.

Shire is no exception. Poets have dusted themselves off our shelves and are turning up in the least likely places: on bestseller lists, in music videos, on Instagram and on TV advertising bank accounts for Nationwide or burgers for McDonald's. London's poetry It Girl Greta Bellamacina has even turned up in Burberry campaigns (as well as hosting poetry nights for the label). Novelist Kingsley Amis may have flogged Campari back in his day, but when did poets last have this sort of selling power?

The fusty image of the poet is long gone. These new writers are redefining the scene and making it relevant to a fresh generation of readers. Writers such as Rupi Kaur, who has 2.1 million Instagram followers (and whose selfpublished collection Milk And Honey has sold more than 1.4 million copies), and the Mercury Prize-winning poet and rapper Kate Tempest. Book sales reflect this trend: poetry sales have risen by 15% this year (611,990 books by August compared to 531,788 by the same time in 2016). Why now?

"I work in a bookshop and am always surprised by what's hot," says Hera Lindsay Bird, a bookseller from New Zealand whose eponymous debut poetry collection was released with great fanfare by Penguin in November.

"I'd like to think it's because poetry is becoming more democratic, and there are a wider range of voices and subjects out there than 'Autumn reminds me of my own death and everyone else's'."

Bird's work is an antidote to obscurity. She describes it as "comedic, metaphor-laden love poetry with equal parts exploding helicopters, fields of violets, Nineties sitcom references and dick jokes". And the 'traditional' world approves: Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy picked her as a name to watch ("Without doubt the most arresting and original new young poet, on the page and in performance").

Bird's most famous poems include the self-explanatory Keats Is Dead So F*** Me From Behind, which received 50,000 page views in a month when it was posted on the New Zealand website The Spinoff, and Monica, which is about, well, Monica from the TV sitcom Friends. The most exciting new names in poetry are not being discovered by publishers, but by readers online.

Social media has allowed Bird to show her work to people who wouldn't usually define themselves as poetry readers. Yet social media has also offered her more than just that.

"The kind of poetry I like was actually shaped by the humour and playfulness of social media," she says. "I always have erratic punctuation and capitalisation in all my poems now, because the way we use punctuation to communicate meaning online is so funny and emotive. I know people have been using experimental punctuation for years in poetry, but Twitter has made grammar funny and fresh and weird again.

"What I like best about poetry is the total freedom of the form. Sometimes a poem will capture a feeling or a moment in time and as long as people love it, that's enough."

Not everyone agrees. Writing for the poetry journal PN Review, poet Rebecca Watt recently dismissed Instapoetry as "consumer-driven content" for "instant gratification".

Bird is having none of it. "There's this really intense bitterness and anger that comes from certain members of the poetry community when something they think is mediocre becomes popular, and I find the anger both hilarious and disturbing," she says.

"It's like yelling at your teenage daughter for preferring Britney Spears to Chopin. I happen to like both Britney Spears and Chopin, and think it's possible for both to exist at once without hurting anyone. Besides, it's so boring and entitled to yell at everyone else for not being as enlightened as you. Just be happy that people are reading."

Yet the power of these Instapoets to reach new audiences for poetry is undeniable. Warsan Shire can broadcast her work to nearly 90,000 Twitter followers and 39,000 Instagram followers; former model Yrsa Daley Ward has 123,000 Instagram followers; while Nayyirah Waheed (author of The Becoming: "be easy./take your time./you are coming/home./to yourself") has 428,000 followers.

In the past month, several major poetry collections have been released, from Wild Embers by Nikita Gill to A Recipe For Sorcery by Vanessa Kisuule, The Sun And Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur and You Took The Last Bus Home by Brian Bilston, known as the 'Poet Laureate of Twitter', who has been pseudonymously posting verse for years.

Social media, says Bilston, has made poetry relevant again: "Something like Twitter, which people are looking at every hour of their day, gives us an opportunity to put poems at the heart of things in a way that books simply can't. So the poems that go viral are often a response to big happenings in the world.

"There are poets out there - whether old or new - who have said something funny or profound and relevant about it. That placement of a poem in a real-time setting can be really powerful."

From Allen Ginsberg's post-war beat poetry to the Jamaican-British dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, people have long expressed politics through poetry. And today is no different.

"Because we live in times that are so mental, we can't tell a story without it feeling political. Obviously, everything is f***ing crazy", Kate Tempest told The Guardian.

The poet Andrew McMillan, whose debut collection Physical in 2015 about modern masculinity was the first poetry collection to win The Guardian First Book Award, argues that poetry is thriving right now because it is the only form that can respond swiftly and directly to our times.

"People have always thought of it as this art form that can speak to important moments. Oftentimes, people come to me when they need something for weddings or funerals. Poetry can speak to these big moments. And I think for our generation, we're living through a time that feels scary. Maybe that's why they're coming back to poetry. After all, poetry can respond quickly."

Such was the case earlier this year when the poet Tony Walsh performed This Is The Place at a vigil for the victims of the Manchester Arena bombing. Walsh's ode to his city's rich culture and history had been written in 2015 for the charity Forever Manchester, which funds community activity, but then midway through 2017, it captured the response of the city to the terrorist attack. As Jeanette Winterson put it, poets find "words where there are no words".

Meanwhile, the performance poetry scene is becoming a cornerstone of the entertainment circuit, with dozens of events taking place in cities across the UK every week.

What's more, says Murray Lachlan Young, who in the mid-Nineties became the only poet to have signed a £1million publishing deal, "it is not, like so many areas of popular expression, a boys' club".

He gives credit to pioneers such as Salena Godden, Joolz Denby and Kate Fox for creating an environment in which "women feel comfortable and empowered".

"Like any cool 'new' scene, it's built on the fact that people are into it because they are into it," he says. "Not because they feel there is a guaranteed living in it. And because of that, there isn't industry control. It's very underground and DIY... it's a bit like the culture revolutions of punk, rave and the Sixties."

Sharmilla Beezmohun, who runs the live speaking events company Speaking Volumes, agrees. Often when people talk about poetry, she argues, they are speaking of "a rarified canon... But there is a world beyond the usual literary establishment.

"The poetry establishment has not been that open to women coming in. Poets like Carol Ann Duffy and Jackie Kay have fought battles over a long time and they have enabled young women to feel today that they can give it a go. Certainly, the current climate is very encouraging to young women and there are lots of female voices being heard."

And if you want to get started as a poet?

"Just give it a go," says Young, who argues that the spoken-word scene is more democratic than most other areas of writing or performance.

"You don't have to have studied an instrument or have particular studio skills to get the work out there," he says. Whether you're an amateur or an English grad "you still have the same chance at success".

What are you waiting for? It's time to get writing.

The insta-poets you need to know

Warsan Shire
Need to know: After reading For Women Who Are Difficult To Love, Beyoncé used Shire's poetry to staggering effect in her visual album, Lemonade.

Find the work: Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth ( £4, Mouthmark) is available to buy online.
Yrsa Daley-Ward
Need to know: The former model's poetry makes even the darkest, most vulnerable aspects of human existence seem beautiful, with tales of depression, relationships, anxiety and self-care.

Find the work: Her collection Bone ( £9.99, Penguin) is out now.

Greta Bellamacina
Need to know: Exploring everything from beauty ideals to ugly intimacies of relationships, this poet, filmmaker and model isn't afraid to confront difficult subjects.

Find the work: The collection Smear ( £10, New River Press), edited by Bellamacina, is out now.
Rupi Kaur
Need to know: The Canadian hit headlines after Instagram removed 'visual poetry' showing her bleeding through her pyjama bottoms.

Find the work: Her anthology The Sun And Her Flowers ( £12.99, Simon & Schuster) was released in October.
Hera Lindsay Bird
Need to know: The New Zealander behind poems such as Keats Is Dead So F*** Me From Behind deals with love, darkness and Nineties sitcoms with surreal wit and emotion.

Find the work: Her first published collection Hera Lindsay Bird ( £9.99, Penguin) is out now.
Vanessa Kisuule
Need to know: The writer and burlesque artist looks at womanhood and self-esteem. She also does rap battles under the moniker 'Shonda Rhymez'.

Find the work: A Recipe For Sorcery ( £9.99, BurningEyeBooks) and Joyr iding The Storm ( £8.99) are out now.
Stylist's Visible Women campaign is dedicated to raising awareness of women who've made a difference, celebrating their success, and empowering future generations to follow their lead. See more from Visible Women here.

Words: Fiona Wilson, Lizzie Pook Main image: Sandrachile

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From Rupi Kaur to Warsan Shire: the rise of the Insta poet

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skip to main content Stylist logo Open site navigation Close site navigation Copyright © 2010-2018 Stylist Mainstream poetry has been an alien concept for decades, but a new generation of sassy, topical and social media-savvy poets has found a willing audience...

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30th September

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Roald Dahl Day

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National Awareness Days Events Calendar 2018 & 2019

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Also known as International Teachers Day, World Teachers Day is held yearly on October 5. Since its set up in 1994, the day celebrates the marking of the " teaching in Freedom" in 1996. Last year the theme was "Engaging Teachers". It is observed all over the world over since 1994 after the UNESCO Recommendation concerning Teachers.

What is the purpose of the World Teachers Day?
Its point is to centre around "acknowledging, evaluating and enhancing the instructors of the world" and to give a chance to consider the issues identified with educators and the teaching process in general.

Late year World Teachers' Day honoured the twentieth commemoration of the 1997 UNESCO points concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel, bringing the occasionally disregarded zone of showing staff at Higher Education foundations into the discussion about teachers. In 2018 the teachers day will be on a Friday, and it is worth following.

The event has consistently been held on October 5 since 1994 and the goal is the same; to honours educators' associations around the world. Its point is to prepare to bolster for instructors and to guarantee that the requirements of future ages will keep on being met by educators.

As indicated by UNESCO, World Teachers' Day speaks to a massive token of the mindfulness, comprehension and thankfulness showed for the fundamental commitment that educators make in advancement by teaching.

The Education International (EI) organisation firmly trusts that World Teachers' Day ought to be globally perceived and celebrated far and wide. EI likewise believes that the standards of the 1966/97 suggestions ought to be considered for execution in all countries.

More than 100 nations celebrate the World Teachers' Day globally. The endeavours of Education International and its 401 associations have added to this broadly spread acknowledgement. Consistently, EI dispatches an open mindfulness crusade to feature the commitments of the teaching calling.

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World Teachers Day 2018 - National Awareness Days Events Calendar 2018 & 2019

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Also known as International Teachers Day, World Teachers Day is held yearly on October 5. Since its set up in 1994, the day celebrates the marking of the " teaching in Freedom" in 1996. Last year the theme was "Engaging Teachers". It is observed all over the world over since 1994 after the UNESCO Recommendation ...

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Throughout Europe, 700 million Europeans are represented in the Council of Europe's 46 member states and all are encouraged to discover more languages at any age, as part of or alongside their studies. This stems from the Council of Europe's conviction that linguistic diversity is a tool for achieving greater intercultural understanding and a key element in the rich cultural heritage of our continent. Therefore, the Council of Europe, in Strasbourg, promotes plurilingualism in the whole of Europe.

At the Council of Europe's initiative, the European Day of Languages has been celebrated every year since 2001 on 26 September - together with the European Commission.

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One incredibly important thing we can give our children is to introduce them to books they love at a very early age. The key to success is unlocking children's imaginations and curiosity with stories that really excite them.

When a Roald Dahl story gets you in its grip, there's nothing quite like it. This giant of a man didn't write typical children's stories; they are anarchic, outrageous and cruel with exuberant language and playful rudeness.

Here I reveal just some of the important life lessons to be gleaned from his stories, and how to ignite and nurture a lasting love of reading in your kids.

Dahl's children's stories contain extraordinary ingredients which make them utterly delicious to kids, and many have been adapted as screenplays. But what exactly makes the characters so unforgettable and impossible to resist?

When children find stories they love, it gives them the confidence and motivation to try more challenging books. "If we can raise children with an intrinsic love of reading, it leads to an indelible desire to learn," says Jonathan Douglas from the National Literacy Trust.

With determination you can make great things happen - just like the young heroes in Dahl's stories.

Mr Fox is self-confident and assured, which helps him master difficult situations and outwit the evil farmers.

Despite living in dire poverty, Charlie Bucket doesn't complain. He makes the most of what he's got and is kind to all he meets.

When Charlie inherits riches beyond his wildest dreams, it doesn't change him at all. No matter what your circumstances, treat others with respect.

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February in the UK is LGBT History Month.

To celebrate in my Library I have been working on a display celebrating British LGBT Authors both classic and modern. If any colleagues would like to make use of the display materials I have been working on, you may download them below. More pieces will be added as they are completed.

Just over two years ago I created a Mobile Library Library Mobile for my daughter's bedroom, I always meant to make it available on here but with one thing and another I never got round to doing that. Today that has changed, you may now download the mobile below the two pics of the original in action.

This is an A3 version and is slightly changed from the original design. Early tests showed that while creating a mobile using standard photocopy paper is doable, for a more long-lasting version card works better. Please feel free to add additional library-related things to hang from the mobile and if you do please feel free to share pictures.
Download (PDF, 669KB)
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So if you work with young people who love writing then download these and use them to spur the best-selling authors of tomorrow on ot new heights of creative excellence!
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Towel Day is an annual celebration on the 25th of May, as a tribute to the late author Douglas Adams (1952-2001). On that day, fans around the universe carry a towel in his honour.

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To download click on the images and save.

As you all know we have a snap General Election on the way on the 8th June, I am currently working on some resources for my students. The first three are posters that you can download below by clocking on the images and saving the A3 .pdf files that they link to. Other materials will be uploaded here once they are ready.

This A3 poster may be more useful during Halloween or for a librarian who is a fan of Blue Öyster Cult.

Downloadable by clicking on the image below

March is Women's History Month and Wednesday 8th March is International Women's Day.

To mark the day I have been working on a display and creating rosettes with the colours of the Women's Sufferage Movement and utilising classic and contemporary slogans.

I have created a blank .pdf rosette that students can use to create their own, downloadable here:
Download (PDF, 164KB)
To go with the display I have been adapting classic photos of Suffragettes but with modern slogans on their banners.

These are downloadable here:

As Oscars Season is just round the corner I have put together some resources to aid library staff in schools and public libraries to put together a display of books that have been adapted into movies. An A4 colour Oscar Reading poster and five A3 pages of books for children and young people that have been adapted for the silver screen in film strips.
Download (PDF, 111KB) Download (PDF, 1.83MB)
If anyone would like to create their own filmstrips with book covers you can download the transparent film strip here:

I have created an A3 poster that I have titled "How To..." it can be downloaded by clicking on the image above.

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February in the UK is LGBT History Month. To celebrate in my Library I have been working on a display celebrating British LGBT Authors both classic and modern. If any colleagues would like to make use of the display materials I have been working on, you may download them below.

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Serena Williams: 'I don't need more titles'

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What can Serena Williams teach us about the meaning of life? In an amazingly candid interview she claimed that career success no longer tops her priorities. Some see a moral here for us all.

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Nelson Mandela 1918 - 2013: 'one of the most profoundly good human beings' © Getty Images

Nelson Mandela is dead. After 95 years, his life ended on Thursday December 5th 2013. As one of the most revered figures of the 20th century, what is his legacy to humanity?

As soon as news of Nelson Mandela's death broke yesterday the tributes started pouring in. 'His journey from a prisoner to a president embodied the promise that human beings and countries can change for the better,' said Barack Obama. 'A great light has gone out in the world,' said David Cameron. 'He taught us forgiveness on a grand scale,' said Muhammad Ali.

It was soon clear that he is almost universally considered to be among the most inspirational figures of modern times.

As a young freedom fighter struggling against the brutal racial segregation of South Africa's apartheid, he was a standard bearer for equality, dignity and democracy. As a political prisoner, he was forced to spend his days breaking rocks in a hot, harsh quarry. His eyesight was impaired by the relentless sun, and his health suffered under the terrible conditions. Yet he stayed sane and became a symbol of courage, perseverance and hope.

But perhaps most remarkable of all were his actions when, after 27 years of imprisonment, he was released and elected as South Africa's first black president. Rather than avenging his former oppressors, he publicly forgave them and threw himself into the task of building a society in which all races could be equal and free.

Between 1994 and 1999, as Mandela guided South Africa peacefully from apartheid to democracy, he became the most respected statesman in the world. Many in his own country worshipped the man they called 'Madiba'. Yet instead of building a personality cult, he willingly surrendered power after a single term - showing a restraint that few leaders have shared.

At the height of his fame, 66% of respondents to a BBC survey agreed that Mandela was 'the greatest leader the world has ever known'. He is one of a tiny group of 20th century figures - alongside Mohandas Gandhi, Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King - who are talked of almost as secular saints.
Best of the best?
However admirable these leaders were, though, they were only humans, with human flaws and failings. Martin Luther King was a notorious womaniser; Churchill's career is littered with questionable decisions; Gandhi advocated appeasing Hitler; and Mandela loved expensive clothes and led a campaign of violent resistance. These figures are only symbols for wider movements, some say; instead of hero worshipping individuals, we should recognise that true change comes from the masses.

Of course mass movements are important, reply others. But once in a while a truly remarkable person comes along with the strength, wisdom and charisma to stamp their mark on their times. Nelson Mandela was one of history's true heroes, they say; and it is right that we honour him as such.

Word watch

Apartheid

Under apartheid ('apartness' in the colonial Dutch language Afrikaans), the population was crudely split into four races: native, white, Asian and coloured. Different races were forcibly banned from mingling in any public spaces including schools, hospitals and even beaches. All political power belonged to the whites, while black Africans were barred from most jobs and denied the vote.

Madiba

The name given to Mandela by his native Xhosa clan.

Personality cult

When leaders (such as Stalin in the Soviet Union or Mao in China) use propaganda to create a personal mythology that elevates them to almost godlike status.

Mohandas Gandhi

Often known as 'Mahatma' (a term of spiritual respect), Gandhi led the Indian nationalist movement against the British Empire. He was a pacifist who spread the idea of non-violent resistance.

Winston Churchill

Britain's wartime leader, famous for his fierce hatred of totalitarianism, his gruff, rousing speeches and his slightly outrageous wit.

Martin Luther King

A clergyman and a great speaker who was the most famous figure in the US civil rights movement for full racial equality. Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968.

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Nelson Mandela is dead. After 95 years, his life ended on Thursday December 5th 2013. As one of the most revered figures of the 20th century, what is his legacy to humanity? As soon as news of Nelson Mandela's death broke yesterday the tributes started pouring in.

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Mother of the movement: 'I was tired of giving in' said Rosa Parks

by Barack Obama

He is the 44th President of the USA and the first ever to be black. His father was Kenyan. He has read all the Harry Potter books and has a pet dog named Bo.

In 1955 she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger. As many schools mark Black History Month, Barack Obama reminds us why we all need to follow Rosa Parks - even today.

Rosa Parks' life was a lesson in perseverance. As a child, she grew up listening to the Ku Klux Klan ride by her house and lying in bed at night fearing that her house would be burnt down. In her small hometown in Alabama, she attended a one-room school for African-American children that only went through the sixth grade. When she moved to Montgomery, Alabama, to continue her schooling, she was forced to clean classrooms after school to pay her tuition. Although she attended Alabama State Teachers College, Rosa Parks would later make her living as a seamstress and housekeeper.

Of course, her name became permanently etched in American history on December 1, 1955, when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery bus. It wasn't the first time Rosa Parks refused to acquiesce to the Jim Crow system. The same bus driver who had her arrested had thrown her off a bus the year before for refusing to give up her seat.

Some schoolchildren are taught that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat because her feet were tired. Our nation's schoolbooks are only getting it half right. She once said: "The only tired I was, was tired of giving in."

"were it not for that quiet moment of courage by Mrs Parks I believe I would not be president today"

This solitary act of civil disobedience became a call to action. Her arrest led a then relatively unknown pastor, Martin Luther King, Jr., to organise a boycott of the Montgomery bus system. That boycott lasted 381 days and culminated in a landmark Supreme Court decision finding that the city's segregation policy was unconstitutional.

This solitary act of civil disobedience was also the spark that ignited the beginning of the end for segregation and inspired millions around the country and ultimately around the world to get involved in the fight for racial equality.

Rosa Parks' persistence and determination did not end that day in Montgomery, nor did it end with the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act years later. From 1965 to 1988, Ms. Parks continued her public service by working for my good friend Congressman John Conyers. And in an example of her low-key demeanour, her job in Congressman Conyers' office did not involve appearances as a figurehead or celebrity; she helped homeless folks find housing.

At the age of 74, she opened the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development, which offers education and job training programs for disadvantaged youth. And even into her 80s, Rosa Parks gave lectures and attended meetings with civil rights groups.

At the age of 86, Rosa Parks' courage and fortitude was recognised by President Bill Clinton, who awarded her the nation's highest honour for a civilian - the Congressional Gold Medal.

As we honour the life of Rosa Parks, we should not limit our commemorations to lofty eulogies. Instead, let us commit ourselves to carrying on her fight, one solitary act at a time, and ensure that her passion continues to inspire as it did a half-century ago.

Rosa Parks once said: 'As long as there is unemployment, war, crime and all things that go to the infliction of man's inhumanity to man, regardless - there is much to be done, and people need to work together.' It's up to us to make sure that her message is shared.

As a personal note, I think it is fair to say were it not for that quiet moment of courage by Mrs. Parks, I would not be president today. I owe her a great thanks. She will be sorely missed.

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by Barack Obama He is the 44th President of the USA and the first ever to be black. His father was Kenyan. He has read all the Harry Potter books and has a pet dog named Bo. In 1955 she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger.

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Could the disaster in Indonesia have been prevented? On Friday, a devastating tsunami hit the city of Palu just as an official tsunami warning was called off. The death toll is still climbing.

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Walter Tull Story & First Chapter Sample

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Walter Tull Story & First Chapter Sample

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Inspiring bio of Walter 'Tully' Tull, hero of English football and World War One.

94 in stock

Reading Age: 7 Interest Age: Teen

ISBN: 978-1-78112-426-0

The amazing story of Walter Tull, first UK black pro footballer and officer in World War One.

Information for Grown-Ups: This book has a dyslexia-friendly layout, typeface and paperstock so that even more readers can enjoy it. It has been edited to a reading age of 7. It features a removable 'dyslexia-friendly' sticker.

Read the first chapter of Respect: The Walter Tull Story below.

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Respect: The Walter Tull Story by Michaela Morgan

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The amazing story of Walter Tull, first UK black pro footballer and officer in World War One. This title has related teaching resources. Information for Grown-Ups: This book has a dyslexia-friendly layout, typeface and paperstock so that even more readers can enjoy it. It has been edited to a reading age of 8.

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Tottenham's first black player should be awarded the Military Cross | Garth Crooks

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Garth Crooks: David Cameron can do justice to Britain's black first world war hero Walter Tull by posthumously awarding him a military honour

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How are we remembering World War One? - CBBC Newsround

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This year marks 100 years since the end of World War One. Many events are taking place across the country - and abroad - to mark this significant moment in modern history.

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The First World War (1914-1918) changed Britain to a degree that was unthinkable in 1914. Pre-war certainties and values such as honor, fatherland and progress disintegrated on the battlefields and trenches in France and Belgium. New technology such as tanks, machine guns, grenades, flame throwers and poison gas were used to destroy the enemy; constant fire for days on end was intended to break the soldiers in the trenches. Unspeakable horrors led to psychological problems of unknown proportions.

Coping with these horrors during and after The Great War (as it's still called in Britain today) seemed like a Herculean task to poets - how do you put the unspeakable into words? Some poets, e.g. Rupert Brooke, still celebrated the heroism of the English soldiers (e.g., 1914 II. Safety), whereas others, such as Wilfred Owen, tried to describe the horrors of this war (e.g., Dulce et Decorum Est).

Every year on the Sunday closest to November 11, Britain remembers the dead of the First World War. For Remembrance Day 2012, famous British actors were asked to recite First World War poetry. The finished clips were to be shown on TV that day. The video above shows three actors reciting four poems by Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen (click the names of the actors for information about them and the titles of the poems for the full text):

1. Sean Bean reads Wilfred Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth"

2. Gemma Arterton reads Wilfred Owen's "Arms and the Boy"

3. Sophie Okonedo reads Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier"

4. Sean Bean reads Wilfred Owen's "The Last Laugh"

Bonus material:
By profession, teaches English and History at a High School in northern Bavaria, Germany. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on .

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British Actors Read Poignant Poetry from World War I

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The First World War (1914-1918) changed Britain to a degree that was unthinkable in 1914. Pre-war certainties and values such as honor, fatherland and progress disintegrated on the battlefields and trenches in France and Belgium.

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The First World War. The Great War. The war to end all wars. No matter what you call it, when many of us imagine the global war that took millions of lives between 1914 and 1918, we picture it in black and white.

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The Old West was an era obsessed with "the annihilation of space and time." In a world where nature's most fundamental dimensions were the target of a manic quest for mechanical domination, no aspect of nature was safe from such forcible subversion. The wilderness and its creatures became symbolic of what needed to be conquered to prove man's power and progress, and no wild creature represented the whole of nature more thoroughly than the wolf.

In The Wolves of Currumpaw (public library), London-based illustrator William Grill - who has previously brought to visual life the adventures of pioneering polar explorer Ernest Shackleton - tells the most famous and fabled wolf-hunting story of the Old West, a story both disquieting and redemptive, emblematic of the era's problematic relationship with the natural world and central to the evolution of the wildlife conservation movement over the century that followed it.

Half a million wolves roamed freely across North America, but with the arrival of European settlers the habits of the animals began to change.

These were the dying days of the old west and the fate of wolves was sealed in it.

A few, however, still roamed the vast and changing landscape.

Dominating this vanishing world was Old Lobo, the enormous leader of a pack of grey wolves, reverently referred to by the natives of Currumpaw valley as the King.

Old Lobo was a giant among wolves who commanded a sleek and well-conditioned pack: each of them was a wolf of renown. Lobo's band was a small one, but fiercely loyal to their leader. At night his deep howl struck fear through the hearts of the ranchmen and farmers, as they knew it meant yet another raid on their cattle.

So formidable was Old Lobo that local legend soon cast him as a magical and uncatchable creature. Eventually, the terrorized cattle barons and cowboys assembled a bounty of $1,000 for Lobo's head - an unprecedented amount for any wanted person, much less beast. A roster of renowned wolf-hunters come from near and far to try their hand at capturing and killing Old Lobo, but each failed and went home in shame.

Grill tells the story without a sentimental gloss over the jarring cruelty that was a matter of course in the Old West. But what emerges is an essential reminder that we can't reasonably judge one era by the moral standards of another; that, above all, so many of our ethical principles have emerged from the disquietude of their opposite - a sentiment echoed in the contrast between Grill's soft, sensitive illustrations and the brutality of the killings, both by the wolves and of the wolves.

At last, in 1893, a man by the name of Ernest Thompson Seton - a British naturalist living in New York - hears of the hunt for Old Lobo. This was an era when being a naturalist and being a hunter weren't oxymoronic, and by the age of thirty-three, Seton had established a reputation of being excellent at both. Like Leonardo's anatomical drawing, Seton used the cadavers of the animals he killed to produce more accurate and detailed illustrations. He had a particular expertise in wolves and even bragged to come from the lineage of Scotsmen who had exterminated Britain's last wolves.

Seton set out for the Old West and spent days studiously acquainting himself with Old Lobo's territory and habits. After a series of increasingly inventive and elaborate attempts at a capture, each of which Old Lobo outsmarted with his extraordinary intelligence and shrewdness, Seton noticed something seemingly small, yet enormous - one January morning in 1894, he saw smaller tracks in the dirt ahead of Old Lobo's.

Seton realized that Old Lobo was letting a female wolf run ahead of him - he was in love. A local cowboy who had been observing the pack named Lobo's beloved Blanca, for she was an exceptional all-white creature.

And so Seton devised the cruelest plan of all - he would capture Blanca in order to lure her notorious mate.

Blanca was the most beautiful wolf Seton had ever seen. She turned to face him and let out a rallying cry, her howl reverberating across the canyon. From all over the mesa replied the deep call of Lobo, but he was too far away.

She made her last cry as they closed in. With a heavy heart, Seton loaded her carefully onto his horse.

Lobo's howl echoed throughout the distant land as he desperately searched for Blanca. He hadn't really deserted her, but seeing the men's guns he knew he could not save her.

All day long Seton and the ranchmen heard him calling... Finding the spot where Blanca had taken her last breath, his wailing rolled far over the canyon. Even the ever stoic cowboys turned their heads.

Knowing how vulnerable the great wolf was in grieving his beloved, Seton doubled his efforts, hoping to derail Old Lobo's usual cunning. On the fateful last day of January of 1894, he succeeded - each of Old Lobo's four paws was caught in one of Seton's 130 traps.

But as Seton approached the King of Currumpaw, something kept him from the kill. He commanded his men to capture Old Lobo alive.

They brought him back to the ranch-house and fit him with a chained collar. Alive though he may be, Old Lobo was a broken being. He refused water and food, silently staring at the plains that had been his dominion and the landscape of his love. Seton would later reflect on his captive's fate:

A lion shorn of his strength, an eagle robbed of his freedom, or a dove bereft of his mate, all die, it is said, of a broken heart; and who will avert that this grim bandit could bear the three-fold brunt, heart-whole?

Old Lobo did not bear it. By the time the sun rose the following morning, his spirit had succumbed to the triple heartbreak. Old Lobo was dead. But as Seton lifted the lifeless body of his nemesis, he was overcome by pain and shame so profound that his entire character was reoriented in an instant.

Seton was a deeply conflicted man, torn between his love of nature and his cunning ability as a hunter. However, after the death of Lobo, something in him changed.

"This proved to be one of the turning points of my life..." he reflected, and immediately wrote Lobo: The King of Currumpaw, where he cast himself as the villain and Lobo as the hero. Seton devoted the rest of his life to protecting the wolf species, and to the conservation of American wildlife that was so heavily under threat.

He never killed a wolf again.

In 1902 Seton founded the Woodcraft Indians. He believed that "through the promotion of interest in outdoor life and woodcraft lies the preservation of wildlife and landscape."

Seton himself would later write:

Ever since Lobo, my sincerest wish has been to impress upon people that each of our native wild creatures is in itself a precious heritage that we have no right to destroy or put beyond the reach of our children.

We are left to wonder whether human nature is such that we are incapable of rising from our darkest primal impulses until they have plummeted us to rock bottom. Perhaps we only grow and better ourselves after we've been thoroughly heartbroken by our own foibles. Still, the question remains: Does one being's moral reformation justify another's death? Perhaps the tale of Old Lobo, rendered in Grill's sensitive illustrations, stands as the eternally wistful sigh of "no," steering us toward a more bloodless path to betterment.

The Wolves of Currumpaw comes from independent British children's book press Flying Eye Books, makers of such imaginative and sensitive treasures as The Little Gardener, , , and Monsters & Legends. Complement it with this heartening children's book about the conservation of Puerto Rico's parrots.
Illustrations courtesy of William Grill / Flying Eye Books; photographs by Maria Popova

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The Wolves of Currumpaw: The Illustrated True Story of the Tragic and Redemptive Fate of Wolves in North America

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The Old West was an era obsessed with "the annihilation of space and time." In a world where nature's most fundamental dimensions were the target of a manic quest for mechanical domination, no aspect of nature was safe from such forcible subversion.

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National Poetry Day : Official UK website

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National Poetry Day : Official UK website

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National Poetry Day is the annual mass celebration on the first Thursday of October that encourages everyone to make, experience and share poetry with family and friends.

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Black Poets Matter: the Poetry By Heart poem collections

A thoughtful, well-informed email from an A-Level student landed in our inbox the other day, asking about the presence of black and minority ethnic poets on the website. She questioned whether our collections had sufficient diversity for her to feel included in the competition. And earlier in the summer one of our long-standing Poetry By Heart teachers asked a related question about our collections as she wished to make more use of them with her A Level students. All excellent questions.

So, over on the blog this week we have set out the 75 poems included across our collections that are by black and minority ethnic poets. You will see a wall of poet portraits and if you click on one, you'll be taken to a poem by that poet somewhere on the site. Some poets have more than one poem so you will find some portraits repeated. Sometimes they cluster together and sometimes they are further apart - we sequenced them by the poem's publication date! You'll find exciting contemporary poets as well as poets who lived in the 20 th century, and a few from previous centuries. There are poets born in or who migrated to Britain, and poets from other regions and countries including the Caribbean, India and the USA. There are favourite poets whose poems have featured regularly in school anthologies and there are poets who are less well known. The poems are drawn together from all the different timeline and showcases - in terms of the Poetry By Heart competition, remember that pupils can choose their poems from anywhere on the site, though we advise a little age-related caution.

Compiling the poems and poets in one place in this blogpost has made us think harder, too, about the navigation tools on the website. We want students to find poems and poets they are interested in but our filters have tended to focus on themes rather than poet identities, though there are some of those. The key stage 4 and 5 timeline has a filter specifically for easy access to Caribbean poets, and the key stage 3 timeline has a filter for Harlem Renaissance writers and poets born in India. We have more to do to apply this type of filter consistently across the collections - and we're working on it!

We hope this blogpost will be a source of joyful discovery, reading and sharing these poems aloud. We'd love to see inspiring and magical performances of these poems recited in this year's competition - if your students want inspiration, some of the poem pages also feature student performances. We'd love to have additional suggestions to consider in our next review of the site in the summer term.
Read the blogpost here.

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Poetry By Heart | Black Poets Matter: the Poetry By Heart poem collections

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Black Poets Matter: the Poetry By Heart poem collections A thoughtful, well-informed email from an A-Level student landed in our inbox the other day, asking about the presence of black and minority ethnic poets on the website. She questioned whether our collections had sufficient diversity for her to feel included in the competition.

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Collection of free to access poetry 9you need to sign up to access)

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Sea Fever

By John Masefield

Read

Poem of the week

Receive a different poem every week in your email

Sign up

Choose poems

Find a poem to learn from any of our timeline and showcase collections

Learn poems by heart

With tips on how to memorise poems and how to polish them for performance

Perform poems out loud

Share your poems aloud in a class, club or event of any shape or size, at school or college

Enter the national competition

Do it your way - either the 1- poem Freestyle celebration or the 2-poem Classic championship

Come to the Grand Finale

Classic finalists and the best Freestylers perform on stage at Shakespeare's Globe, London - with guest tickets for schools taking part

Everything you need is here

Videos of past finalists, hundreds of classic and contemporary poems, and pupil and teacher competition guides

The competition

Poetry by Heart is a national poetry speaking competition for schools and colleges, open to all pupils in key stages 2 to 5. Taking part in Poetry By Heart is all about developing confidence with poetry in an enjoyable, accessible and engaging way. Registration, participation and competition entry are free for schools and colleges in England.

Poetry Collections Lucky Dip

Mix it up

First World War Poems Showcase

Experience Poetry By Heart

The 2022 Finals

The 2021 Finals

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Read Sign up Choose poems Find a poem to learn from any of our timeline and showcase collections Learn poems by heart With tips on how to memorise poems and how to polish them for performance Perform poems out loud Share your poems aloud in a class, club or event

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Holocaust Memorial Day

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Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) on 27 January is the day to remember the millions of people murdered in the Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution and in the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur. Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT) is the charity which promotes and supports HMD in the UK.

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Find the lat­est month­ly picks, dis­cus­sion ques­tions and resource guides, and the lat­est books in paperback.

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FREE DOWNLOAD USAGE

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and is available for personal use only!
That means free download art can only be used in your home or in the classroom.
The artwork CAN NOT be used for commercial use or be resold/redistributed by any means or profit.

The artwork CAN NOT be used on promotional material of any kind.

If you are interested in using this work commercially, then you need to get my written permission and obtain licensing.

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FREE DOWNLOADS - Rachel Ignotofsky Design

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All art has been uniquely created by RACHEL IGNOTOFSKYand is available for personal use only! That means free download art can only be used in your home or in the classroom. The artwork CAN NOT be used for commercial use or be resold/redistributed by any means or profit.

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Welcome to our educators hub where you can find everything you need to support reading for pleasure all year round. Our World Book Day 2024 resources will be published on 8 December 2023.

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Booklist: Children's books about science

Children's Books

​

Celebrating

Science!

We've put together a list of our top recommended children's books that celebrate science! We have hand-picked our favourite books that examine key concepts from biology, chemistry and physics - as well as stories that explore scientific thinking and shine a spotlight on famous (and not-so-famous) scientists.

​

​

Click each book cover to view on Amazon.

science books for ages 3-5

science books for ages 5-7

science books for ages 7-9

science books for ages 9-11

You may also like...

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Science Books for Children | BooksForTopics

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A booklist of children’s books that celebrate science, perfect for Science Week and beyond for KS2, KS1 and EYFS. We have hand-picked our favourite children’s books that examine key concepts from biology, chemistry and physics as well as stories that explore scientific thinking and famous scientists…

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https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70139/the-poetry-of-world-war-i

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Roughly 10 million soldiers lost their lives in World War I, along with seven million civilians. The horror of the war and its aftermath altered the world for decades, and poets responded to the brutalities and losses in new ways. Just months before his death in 1918, English poet Wilfred Owen famously wrote:

This book is not about heroes. English Poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War.

To mark the WWI centenary, we've put together a sampling of poems written in English by both soldiers and civilians, chosen from our archive of over 250 poems from WWI. We've also compiled a collection showcasing the poets who served and volunteered in World War I.

While many of these poems do not address a particular war event, we've listed them by year, along with a selection of historical markers, to contextualize the poems historically. You may notice that more poems in 1914 and 1915 extoll the old virtues of honor, duty, heroism, and glory, while many later poems after 1915 approach these lofty abstractions with far greater skepticism and moral subtlety through realism and bitter irony. Though horrific depictions of battle in poetry date back to Homer's Iliad, the later poems of WWI mark a substantial shift in how we view war and sacrifice.

1914
Archduke Ferdinand assassinated. Outbreak of war in July/August. Germany invades Belgium. First Battle of the Marne, First Battle of Ypres. United States remains neutral. Trench warfare begins. The Siege of Antwerp. The Christmas truce.

" Channel Firing" by Thomas Hardy
" On Receiving News of the War" by Isaac Rosenberg
" Peace" by Rupert Brooke (published in Poetry)
" The Soldier" by Rupert Brooke (published in Poetry)
" The Dead" by Rupert Brooke
" Joining the Colours" by Katherine Tynan
" Men Who March Away" by Thomas Hardy
" War Girls" by Jessie Pope
" On Heaven" by Ford Madox Ford (published in Poetry)
" To Germany" by Charles Sorley
" For the Fallen" by Laurence Binyon
" Phases" by Wallace Stevens (published in Poetry)
" Iron" by Carl Sandburg (published in Poetry)
" The Bombardment" by Amy Lowell (published in Poetry)
" War Yawp" by Richard Aldington (published in Poetry)
" Fallen" by Alice Corbin Henderson (published in Poetry)
" August 1914" by Mary Wedderburn Cannan
" August 1914" by Isaac Rosenberg
" August, 1914 " by Vera Mary Brittain

1915
Germans sink RMS Lusitania. The Dardenelles campaign. Battle of Gallipoli. Second Battle of Ypres. First use of poison gas.

" In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae
" Absolution" by Siegfried Sassoon
" Home" by Edward Thomas
" Champagne, 1914-15" by Alan Seeger
" Belgium" by Edith Wharton
" Before Marching and After" by Thomas Hardy
" In Memoriam (Easter, 1915)" by Edward Thomas
" The Owl" by Edward Thomas
" A Lament" by Katherine Tynan
" The Spring in War-Time" by Sara Teasdale
" Into Battle" by Julian Grenfell
" On Being Asked for a War Poem" by William Butler Yeats
" Rouen" by Mary Wedderburn Cannan
" Marching" by Isaac Rosenberg (published in Poetry)
" Such, Such is Death" by Charles Sorley
" The Falling Leaves" by Margaret Postgate Cole
" When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead" by Charles Sorley
" This is No Case of Petty Right or Wrong " by Edward Thomas

1916
Battle of Verdun, Battle of the Somme. President Wilson re-elected with campaign slogan, "He kept us out of the war." Rasputin is murdered.

" Rain" by Edward Thomas
" Break of Day in the Trenches" by Isaac Rosenberg (published in Poetry)
" The Troop Ship" by Isaac Rosenberg
" The Kiss" by Siegfried Sassoon
" The Poet as Hero" by Siegfried Sassoon
" As the Team's Head Brass" by Edward Thomas
" Sonnet 9: On Returning to the Front after Leave" by Alan Seeger
" In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'" by Thomas Hardy
" Easter, 1916" by William Butler Yeats
" The Trumpet" by Edward Thomas
" The Messages" by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
" The Death Bed" by Siegfried Sassoon
" Lights Out" by Edward Thomas
" The Night Patrol" by Arthur Graeme West
" The War Films" by Henry Newbolt
" The Twins" by Robert Service
" Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France" by Alan Seeger
" At the Movies " by Florence Ripley Mastin

1917
Germans issue Zimmerman Telegram to Mexico, United States declares war on Germany, draft begins. U.S. troops land in France. Third Battle of Ypres. Bolshevik uprising in Russia, led by Lenin, headed by Trotsky.

" Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen
" I Have a Rendezvous with Death" by Alan Seeger
" Blighters" by Siegfried Sassoon
" Two Fusiliers" by Robert Graves
" Anthem for Doomed Youth" by Wilfred Owen
" Returning, We Hear the Larks" by Isaac Rosenberg
" The Dead Kings" by Francis Ledwidge
" Servitude" by Ivor Gurney
"from Battle of the Somme: The Song of the Mud" by Mary Borden
" Dead Man's Dump" by Isaac Rosenberg
" Counter-Attack" by Siegfried Sassoon
" Sergeant-Major Money" by Robert Graves
" The Work" by Gertrude Stein
" To His Love" by Ivor Gurney
" After the War" by Mary Wedderburn Cannan
" To Any Dead Officer" by Siegfried Sassoon
" Photographs" by Ivor Gurney
" Breakfast " by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

1918
U.S. President Wilson issues Fourteen Points to peace. Germany launches Spring Offensive, bombs Paris. United States launches attacks at Belleau Wood and Argonne Forest. Bolsheviks murder Tsar Nicholas II and Romanov family. Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates, Germany signs armistice on November 11. Paris Peace Conference.

" Strange Meeting" by Wilfred Owen
" Futility" by Wilfred Owen
" Attack" by Siegfried Sassoon
" The Veteran" by Margaret Postgate Cole (published in Poetry)
" Repression of War Experience" by Siegfried Sassoon
" Grass" by Carl Sandburg
" Dawn on the Somme" by Robert Nichols
" God! How I hate you, you young cheerful men " by Arthur Graeme West
" Lettres d'un Soldat" by Wallace Stevens (published in Poetry)
" Ypres" by Laurence Binyon
" Spring Offensive " by Wilfred Owen
" Epitaph On My Days in Hospital" by Vera Mary Brittain
" Roundel" by Vera Mary Brittain
" War Mothers" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
" Glory of Women" by Sigfried Sassoon
" Smile, Smile, Smile" by Wilfred Owen
" S. I. W." by Wilfred Owen
" And There Was a Great Calm" by Thomas Hardy

1919 and After
Armies demobilize, return home. Peace Treaty of Versailles ratified by Germany; U.S. Senate votes to reject treaty and refuses to join League of Nations. Proposal and constitution for League of Nations. The Cenotaph unveiled in London. Treaty of Sevres in 1920 ends war on Eastern Front.

" January 1919" by Christopher Middleton (1919)
" Everyone Sang" by Siegfried Sassoon (1919)
" The Cenotaph" by Charlotte Mew (1919)
" First Time In" by Ivor Gurney (1919)
"from Epitaphs of the War, 1914-18 " by Rudyard Kipling (1919)
" Gethsemane" by Rudyard Kipling (1919)
" Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (Part I)" by Ezra Pound (1920)
" A.E.F." by Carl Sandburg (1920)
" To E.T." by Robert Frost (1920)
" In Memory of George Calderon" by Laurence Binyon (1920)
" War and Peace" by Edgell Rickword (1921)
" Trench Poets" by Edgell Rickword (1921)
"Soldier-Poet" by Hervey Allen (1921)
" For a War Memorial" by G.K. Chesterton (1921)
" Festubert, 1916" by Edmund Blunden (1921)
" Elegy in a Country Churchyard" by G.K. Chesterton (1922)
" Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries" by A.E. Housman (1922)
" Soldier from the wars returning" by A.E. Housman (1922)
" I Saw England - July Night" by Ivor Gurney (1922)
" Champs d'Honneur" by Ernest Hemingway (1923) (published in Poetry)
" Laventie" by Ivor Gurney (1925)
" A War Bride" by Jessie St. John (1928) (published in Poetry)

Read more poets who served or volunteered in WWI

Browse more War Poems
AUDIO
Poet's Choice: Of Love and War: D.A. Powell reads poems from Rupert Brooke and Gwendolyn Brooks.

Anything But Sweet: Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" and modern warfare.
ARTICLES
"100 Years of Poetry: The Magazine and War": A historical look at the role of poetry in wartime.

"How Should We Write About War and Trauma?": Tom Sleigh Looks to David Jones

" Now Online: Siegfried Sassoon's War Diaries "

" Poetry in the First World War" from Poetry magazine (1940)
ONLINE WWI RESOURCES
PBS: The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century
Oxford University: The First World War Poetry Digital Archive U.S. National WWI Museum The Telegraph: Life on the Eve of War

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World War I: Poetry by Year by The Editors | Poetry Foundation

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Roughly 10 million soldiers lost their lives in World War I, along with seven million civilians. The horror of the war and its aftermath altered the world for decades, and poets responded to the brutalities and losses in new ways. Just months before his death in 1918, English poet Wilfred Owen famously wrote: This book is not about heroes.

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Robert Graves was the son of a British father and a German mother. He won a classical scholarship to St John's College, Oxford, in 1914, but instead obtained a commission in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He was sent to France in May 1915, where he took part in the Battle of Loos.

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Engaging, curriculum-aligned teaching resources

Are you looking for teaching and learning resources for Remembrance Day? Look no further! Our Causes of World War I video provides learners with background information about what led to the war and how the British Empire became involved. You can watch for free below.

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Armistice Day resources to unpack the causes of the Great War

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Engaging, curriculum-aligned teaching resources Are you looking for teaching and learning resources for Remembrance Day? Look no further! Our Causes of World War I video provides learners with background information about what led to the war and how the British Empire became involved. You can watch for free below.

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CURRICULUM LINKS AND LEARNING TOPICS

First World War, Art, Trenches, Homefront

Use these sources to discover more about art during the First World War.

For ideas to help you use these sources, take a look at our Suggested Activities.

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CURRICULUM LINKS AND LEARNING TOPICS First World War, Art, Trenches, Homefront Use these sources to discover more about art during the First World War. For ideas to help you use these sources, take a look at our Suggested Activities.

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The first British official war artists' scheme was set up by the government in 1916. Although several female artists were approached either by the British War Memorials Committee or the Ministry of Information, none of them completed commissions for the official schemes.

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5 Inspirational Stories Of Women In The First World War

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From ambulance drivers to translators, women served Britain in a variety of ways during the First World War. Discover their stories now.

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A collection of poems inspired by World War One, featuring poems by First World War poets including Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen.

The First World War inspired profound poetry - words in which the atmosphere and landscape of battle were evoked perhaps more vividly than ever before.

The First World War poets - many of whom lost their lives - became a collective voice, illuminating not only the war's tragedies and their irreparable effects, but the hopes and disappointments of an entire generation.

Although it has been more than one hundred years since the Armistice and the end of the First World War, it continues to move and inspire poets, with Carol Ann Duffy penning a sonnet, 'The Wound in Time', as part of a series of special Remembrance Day events organised by film director Danny Boyle in 2018.

Alongside 'The Wound in Time', here we've curated a collection of just some of the most poignant World War One poems, featuring the writing of the famous soldier poets, Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen, alongside the First World War poetry of nurses, mothers, sweethearts and family and friends who experienced the war from entirely different perspectives. These poems give a profound insight into this period of history.

Love poetry? Discover our edit of the best poetry books.

'It's necessary to separate politics, even history, from the poetry. The work of the British First World War poets can be seen as one of the most powerful collective statements not just against what happened on the western front but against all war.'

Max Egremont, Some Desperate Glory

The Wound in Time Carol Ann Duffy
It is the wound in Time. The century's tides,
chanting their bitter psalms, cannot heal it.
Not the war to end all wars; death's birthing place;
the earth nursing its ticking metal eggs, hatching
new carnage. But how could you know, brave
as belief as you boarded the boats, singing?
The end of God in the poisonous, shrapneled air.
Poetry gargling its own blood. We sense it was love
you gave your world for; the town squares silent,
awaiting their cenotaphs. What happened next?
War. And after that? War. And now? War. War.
History might as well be water, chastising this shore;
for we learn nothing from your endless sacrifice.
Your faces drowning in the pages of the sea.
G.K. Chesterton Elegy in a Country Churchyard
The men that worked for England

They have their graves at home:

And bees and birds of England

About the cross can roam.

But they that fought for England,

Following a falling star,

Alas, alas for England

They have their graves afar.

And they that rule in England,

In stately conclave met,

Alas, alas for England

They have no graves as yet

The Soldier
Rupert Brooke
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England
given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

My thought shall never be that you are dead:
Who laughed so lately in this quiet place.
The dear and deep-eyed humour of that face
Held something ever living, in Death's stead.
Scornful I hear the flat things they have said
And all their piteous platitudes of pain.
I laugh! I laugh! - For you will come again -
This heart would never beat if you were dead.
The world's adrowse in twilight hushfulness,
There's purple lilac in your little room,
And somewhere out beyond the evening gloom
Small boys are culling summer watercress.
Of these familiar things I have no dread
Being so very sure you are not dead.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime ...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under I green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, --
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

There has been no sound of guns,
No roar of exploding bombs;
But the darkness has an edge
That grits the nerves of the sleeper.

Yet there is something else
That drags him from his bed;
And he stands in the darkness
With his feet cold against the floor
And the cold air round his ankles.
He does not know why,
But he goes to the window and sees
A beam of light, miles high,
Dividing the night into two before him,
Still, stark and throbbing.

The houses and gardens beneath
Lie under the snow
Quiet and tinged with purple.

In the last letter that I had from France
You thanked me for the silver Easter egg
Which I had hidden in the box of apples
You liked to munch beyond all other fruit.
You found the egg the Monday before Easter,
And said, 'I will praise Easter Monday now -
It was such a lovely morning'. Then you spoke
Of the coming battle and said, 'This is the eve.
Good-bye. And may I have a letter soon.'

The darkness crumbles away.
It is the same old druid Time as ever,
Only a live thing leaps my hand,
A queer sardonic rat,
As I pull the parapet's poppy
To stick behind my ear.
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
Your cosmopolitan sympathies.
Now you have touched this English hand
You will do the same to a German
Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
To cross the sleeping green between.
It seems you inwardly grin as you pass
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
Less chanced than you for life,
Bonds to the whims of murder,
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,
The torn fields of France.
What do you see in our eyes
At the shrieking iron and flame
Hurled through still heavens?
What quaver - what heart aghast?
Poppies whose roots are in man's veins
Drop, and are ever dropping;
But mine in my ear is safe -
Just a little white with the dust.

'Four years,' some say consolingly. 'Oh well,
What's that? You're young. And then it must have been
A very fine experience for you!'
And they forget
How others stayed behind and just got on-
Got on the better since we were away.
And we came home and found
They had achieved, and men revered their names,
But never mentioned ours;
And no one talked heroics now, and we
Must just go back and start again once more.
'You threw four years into the melting-pot-
Did you indeed!' these others cry. 'Oh well,
The more fool you!'
And we're beginning to agree with them.

When you are standing at your hero's grave,
Or near some homeless village where he died,
Remember, through your heart's rekindling pride,
The German soldiers who were loyal and brave.

Men fought like brutes; and hideous things were done,
And you have nourished hatred harsh and blind.
But in that Golgotha perhaps you'll find
The mothers of the men who killed your son.

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,

A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
As the Team's Head Brass Edward Thomas
As the team's head brass flashed out on the turn
The lovers disappeared into the wood.
I sat among the boughs of the fallen elm
That strewed an angle of the fallow, and
Watched the plough narrowing a yellow square
Of charlock. Every time the horses turned
Instead of treading me down, the ploughman leaned
Upon the handles to say or ask a word,
About the weather, next about the war.
Scraping the share he faced towards the wood,
And screwed along the furrow till the brass flashed
Once more.
The blizzard felled the elm whose crest
I sat in, by a woodpecker's round hole,
The ploughman said. 'When will they take it away?'
'When the war's over.' So the talk began-
One minute and an interval of ten,
A minute more and the same interval.
'Have you been out?' 'No.' 'And don't want to, perhaps?'
'If I could only come back again, I should.
I could spare an arm. I shouldn't want to lose
A leg. If I should lose my head, why, so,
I should want nothing more. . . . Have many gone
From here?' 'Yes.' 'Many lost?' 'Yes, a good few.
Only two teams work on the farm this year.
One of my mates is dead. The second day
In France they killed him. It was back in March,
The very night of the blizzard, too. Now if
He had stayed here we should have moved the tree.'
'And I should not have sat here. Everything
Would have been different. For it would have been
Another world.' 'Ay, and a better, though
If we could see all all might seem good.' Then
The lovers came out of the wood again:
The horses started and for the last time
I watched the clods crumble and topple over
After the ploughshare and the stumbling team.

This beautiful Macmillan Collector's Library anthology brings together the major poets of World War One, including Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, alongside many others whose voices are less well known.

In Some Desperate Glory, historian and biographer Max Egremont gives us a transfiguring look at the life and work of the poets of World War One. Wilfred Owen with his flaring genius; the intense, compassionate Siegfried Sassoon; the composer Ivor Gurney; Robert Graves who would later spurn his war poems; the nature-loving Edward Thomas; the glamorous Fabian Socialist Rupert Brooke; and the shell-shocked Robert Nichols all fought in the war, and their poetry is a bold act of creativity in the face of unprecedented destruction.

It often seems as though more writers and poets fought in The Somme than in any other battle in history. The work of the soldier poets and writers who served at the Somme, Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and Wilfred Owen to name but a few, has informed the popular understanding of this dreadful historical event ever since.

Published to mark the centenary of the First World War, this is a moving and powerful collection of poems written by soldiers, nurses, mothers, sweethearts and family and friends who experienced WWI from different standpoints.

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A collection of WW1 poems inspired by the First World War, featuring First World War poets including Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen.

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This collection of classroom resources can be used to support secondary school teaching around digital literacy and fake news.

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The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta | Hardcover | Epic Reads

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Stonewall Book Award Winner * A Time Magazine Best YA Book Of All TimeA fierce coming-of-age verse novel about identity and the power of drag, from acclaimed...

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Poetry from The Black Flamingo | Dean Atta Live Performance