Last Year I met up with Hollie McNish, Benjmain Zephaniah and Dizraeli in the dank and dirty confines of a Dalston recording studio to film some new cover versions of famous and favourite poems for a project called Page Fright. The idea of the project was to record both the cover version plus one of our signature poems, with each of the films acting as a portal to information about the poets, their influences, the artwork that has inspired them, the music that moves them, the schools of thinking that the poets belong to, and historical details – with links to further reading including thre performed poems. The films are to be produced as ‘apps’ in a sense, with the aim of using performance as a way of enticing young people back into reading. The films will soon be ready for viewing via their own holding website – but here is a preview of my version of Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum. I chose this poem not to commemorate or celebrate 100 years since the outbreak of the First World War, but to remind us that no amount of poppies pinned on chests has changed a damned thing. We are still at war. And poppies still look like bullet holes.
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