A Dramatic Message

This is my performance from the first round of our 1st Annual Poetry Out Loud Competition at Highland. My task was to pick a famous poem (from a long list provided to me), memorize it, and recite it to the audience. I chose "Dulce Et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen. I performed this at the end of February or beginning of March, 2008.

The quality of the audio and video is poor, but I'm really glad that this video even survived. I saw someone filming this, but I never thought I would see the footage. I messed up the word order in two places. You can read the text below.


"Dulce Et Decorum Est"
by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots of gas shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Category:

Film & Animation

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• Highland
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• Jeff
• Green
• poetry
• out
• loud
• dulce
• et
• decorum
• est
• wilfred
• owen
• poem
• world
• war
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[picaticatara]

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