Dr Niall Munro and Dr Jane Potter
As a leading international expert on First World War poetry, Jane’s extensive research into Wilfred Owen’s life and letters and how these interplay with his poetry has challenged his reputation as ‘the poet of pity’ and his perceived pacifism. She has also led the call for wider recognition of First World War women writers like American-British novelist and poet Mary Borden. A reappraisal of the notion of ‘war poet’, is also needed, she argues, to include non-combatants. Her reassessment continues by examining the letters, diaries and weblogs of nurses, doctors and ambulance drivers across both world wars, the Vietnam War and Iraq.
During the period of the First World War centenary, Jane shared her findings on high-profile media shows like BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour and The Jeremy Vine Show. She was interviewed too for the 2018 Sky Arts film The Pity of War, seen by an estimated 8 million people.
Her passionate advocacy of women’s voices during conflict was picked up by Beatrice Rubens, Radio 3 producer of the 2018 Minds of War series. She remarked that Jane’s programme about Mary Borden, which reached an audience of 132,000, was ‘important in extending knowledge of the First World War and of lesser-known female artists.’
The consensus was that in a globalised world, we need to shift away from outdated nationalistic practices, focusing instead on shared international perspectives. In the subsequent book, On Commemoration, 50 international contributors, including renowned architect Daniel Libeskind, award-winning novelists Aminatta Forna and Rachel Seiffert, and human rights lawyer Philippe Sands, endorsed a transnational approach. They argued that greater sensitivity to current conflicts is essential when remembering past wars.
Both projects have also helped to develop new poetry as an essential means of commemoration and through On Commemoration have provided poets with an opportunity to see their work published.
Drawing on his research about the literary memory of the American Civil War, another important strand of Niall’s work was the Veterans’ Poetry Workshops, which he set up in 2018 at the Poetry Centre alongside Jane, poet Susie Campbell, psychologist Dr Rita Phillips, and veteran and PhD researcher Alex Donnelly.
In a bid to challenge the stereotypical image of a veteran as an old white male soldier, the workshops provided a space where UK and US veterans could offer alternative viewpoints. Rather than take a therapeutic approach, the emphasis was on enabling veterans to hone their poetry as artists, regardless of their writing experience. The resulting ebook, ‘My teeth don’t chew on shrapnel’: an anthology of poems by military veterans, reached an international audience and has been downloaded over 800 times. Several of the veterans have continued writing and their work has been published in other books, poetry pamphlets, magazines, and online.
