Owens Hospital Experience

Upon his return to Netley hospital in England after suffering shell shock, Owen was sent to Craiglockhart war hospital in Edinburgh to undergo treatment. Owen was encouraged to write for his treatment and actually edited the hospital's magazine. While in hospital Owen met one of his literary heroes Siegfried Sassoon, Sassoon was a popular poet with published work who Owen admired for his 'cause' expressed throughout his writing. This new friendship allowed Owen to develop his skills and poetry became a way for him to express the pain and suffering the war had brought to him. With this new guidance and encouragement to bring his war experience into his writing, Owen became an activist with his antiwar poetry. Almost all of his famous war poems were written in under a year span after meeting Sassoon in August of 1917, who clearly inspired this creative burst of writing from Owen.

Associated Place(s)

Event date:

Aug 1917 to Aug 1918