Touching the Bones: Unheard Voices of the Great War

Among the writers of the First World War are a few whose voices still ring loud across the gulf of a century, shaping our image of that conflict. These voices are male, upper middle-class and, above all, British. For Touching The Bones, writer and performer Phil Wisdom has selected verse by poets from all sides of the conflict, from Ireland to Armenia, for whom the war brought not lasting fame but an inglorious death. 

Their works are interspersed with personal testimony from those who did survive to record their memories of the war to end war: soldiers and civilians, male and female, young and old, British and German. Hope, despair, horror and humour - represented by Cornish writer Crosbie Garstin's comical perspective on daily life in the trenches - are all here, through the voices of those who lived through the conflict and those who did not. They are voices that deserve to be heard.