Home  |   Programmes  |   News from France  |   Contact  |   RSS

Poetry from the
French Trenches of WWI

Angela France

In 2009, Angela France graduated from the University of Gloucestershire with an M.A. in Creative and Critical Writing. As part of her degree, Angela wrote a thesis called 'Poetry from the French Trenches of World War One'. She was aided by John Checketts, who did the literal translations and the French language poetry readings.

Angela gives the background as to how poetry was written and published in the trenches under appalling conditions. She discusses the difficulties associated with translating French language poetry into English, and reads her interpretation of poems written by ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances.

The file is in mp3 format and will stream on your media player. Click on the link to listen to the programme. If the link doesn't work on your browser, right click on it and from the menu select 'Open in new window'. Depending on how your media player is configured, you might have to first download the file to your computer, and then open it.

Poetry from the French Trenches of WWI (CD quality)
15/02/10. Duration: 25 minutes

If you have a slow internet connection you might prefer to download a much smaller file with slightly lower sound quality:

Poetry from the French Trenches of WWI (radio quality)