Unheard voices

A free public event next week will highlight literary, cultural and historical aspects of the infamous Gallipoli campaign of the First World War.

Poetry written by those on all sides in the conflict will be examined at an afternoon conference in Leeds on Tuesday June 20.

Organised by the University of Leeds in partnership with Leeds Museums and Galleries, Unheard Voices: British, ANZAC and Turkish Poetry of the Gallipoli Campaign will feature a number of presentations by academics from the UK and Turkey, culminating in an evening event with poet, writer and broadcaster Ian McMillan.

Anyone can attend either or both events, which focus on the ill-fated campaign in the Dardanelles in 1915-16.

In an attempt to secure this key sea route to the Russian Empire and open up another front to stretch their enemies’ resources, a naval attack and troop landing on the Gallipoli peninsula was launched, predominantly by British and Australian and New Zealand Army Corps forces.

It proved disastrous for the allies, leading to their complete withdrawal after eight months and estimated deaths of more than 50,000 men on each side – many from disease.

Keynote speakers coming to presnt at the Leeds event are 
Dr Jenny Macleod, Senior Lecturer in Twentieth-Century History (University of Hull), and author of Reconsidering Gallipoli (2004) and Gallipoli (2015); and Dr Jane Potter, Reader (Oxford Brookes University), and author of Wilfred Owen: An Illustrated Life (2014) and the forthcoming Cambridge History of World War One Poetry.

Conference organiser Dr Berkan Ulu, from Malatya in Turkey, is a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Leeds’ School of Languages, Cultures and Societies.

With colleagues, he has been working with schools and community groups in Leeds, looking at the history of the campaign, pictures and examples of poems written by soldiers at Gallipoli, and encouraging participants to create their own poems.

“The conference will share some of our findings and shed light on unknown aspects of the much-neglected poetry of the Gallipoli campaign.

“Ian McMillan’s contribution and response to these poems will provide a fitting finale to the day’s events.”

The conference has been funded by the Gateways to the First World War Public Engagement Centre, of which the University of Leeds is a partner. The Centre is in turn funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Unheard Voices: British, Anzac and Turkish Poetry of the Gallipoli Campaign, is on Tuesday June 20, at Leeds City Museum.

The conference runs from noon-5pm and the poetry evening from 7-9pm.

To register for either event, visit https://goo.gl/wrbHKw

For more details about the Unheard Voices project, see https://goo.gl/CFUFbM