"Mametz Wood" was written in 2005 by British poet Owen Sheers. Mametz is a village in Northern France; the woodland nearby was the site of an especially bloody battle during World War I, in which around 4,000 men from the British Army's Welsh Regiment were killed. Sheers's poem is set many years later, and considers the way that, even a century after the conflict, the land around Mametz Wood is still filled with fragments of the dead soldiers' bodies. The poem is thus a consideration of the horrors of war, and is particularly effective in the way it places natural imagery side-by-side with the frightening and deadly power of human technology.

• Read the full text of “Mametz Wood”

• “Mametz Wood” Summary

• “Mametz Wood” Themes

  • 

    The Horror and Wastefulness of War

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-21
  • 

    Nature vs. Technology

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-3
    • Lines 5-6
    • Lines 7-9
    • Lines 10-12
    • Line 16
    • Lines 19-21
    • Line 20

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Mametz Wood”

  • Lines 1-3

    For years afterwards ...
    ... back into itself.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 4-6

    A chit of ...
    ... of a skull,

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 7-12

    all mimicked now ...
    ... of the skin.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 13-16

    This morning, twenty ...
    ... that outlasted them,

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 17-21

    their socketed heads ...
    ... their absent tongues.

    

    

    

    

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• “Mametz Wood” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

  • Alliteration

    

    

    

    

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    Where alliteration appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “F,” “f,” “f”
    • Line 2: “u,” “u”
    • Line 3: “i,” “i”
    • Line 4: “ch,” “ch,” “l,” “b,” “l”
    • Line 5: “b,” “l”
    • Line 6: “b,” “b”
    • Line 7: “b,” “b”
    • Line 8: “w,” “w,” “w”
    • Line 9: “w”
    • Line 10: “s,” “s”
    • Line 11: “r,” “r,” “w,” “h”
    • Line 12: “w,” “w,” “s,” “s”
    • Line 13: “m,” “m”
    • Line 14: “b,” “b,” “a,” “a”
    • Line 15: “m,” “m”
    • Line 18: “th,” “th,” “th,” “th”

  • Assonance

    

    

    

    

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    Where assonance appears in the poem:

    • Line 2: “a,” “ou,” “u,” “u,” “a”
    • Line 3: “e,” “a,” “a,” “i,” “i”
    • Line 4: “o,” “a,” “ou,” “a”
    • Line 5: “o”
    • Line 6: “o”
    • Line 7: “i,” “i,” “i,” “i”
    • Line 8: “u”
    • Line 9: “u”
    • Line 11: “e,” “i,” “i,” “e”
    • Line 12: “o,” “o”
    • Line 14: “o,” “o,” “o,” “a,” “a”
    • Line 15: “au,” “a,” “a”
    • Line 16: “a,” “a”
    • Line 17: “a,” “a,” “a”
    • Line 18: “a,” “o”
    • Line 19: “u”
    • Line 20: “u”
    • Line 21: “o”

  • Caesura

    

    

    

    

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    Where caesura appears in the poem:

    • Line 2: “young, turning”
    • Line 4: “bone, the”
    • Line 5: “finger, the”
    • Line 7: “flint, breaking”
    • Line 8: “walk, not”
    • Line 13: “morning, twenty”
    • Line 18: “jaws, those,” “them, dropped”
    • Line 20: “now, with”

  • Consonance

    

    

    

    

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    Where consonance appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “F,” “f,” “f,” “f”
    • Line 2: “n,” “n,” “l,” “l”
    • Line 3: “nd,” “nd,” “n”
    • Line 4: “ch,” “n,” “ch,” “n,” “l,” “l,” “d,” “l,” “d”
    • Line 5: “l,” “c,” “l,” “n”
    • Line 6: “b,” “r,” “k,” “n,” “b,” “r,” “k,” “ll”
    • Line 7: “ll,” “m,” “m,” “ck,” “n,” “n,” “l,” “n,” “b,” “k,” “b,” “l”
    • Line 8: “ss,” “s,” “ld,” “w,” “w,” “ld,” “ w”
    • Line 9: “d,” “d,” “s,” “s,” “n,” “n”
    • Line 10: “n,” “n,” “n,” “s,” “n,” “s,” “n,” “n”
    • Line 11: “r,” “r,” “r,” “r,” “w,” “n,” “ed”
    • Line 12: “w,” “nd,” “w,” “r,” “r,” “s,” “r,” “c,” “s”
    • Line 13: “n,” “n,” “n,” “r,” “n,” “r”
    • Line 14: “b,” “r,” “k,” “c,” “b,” “k,” “rm,” “rm”
    • Line 15: “r,” “k,” “d,” “d,” “d,” “c,” “b”
    • Line 16: “b,” “th”
    • Line 17: “th,” “ck,” “d,” “d,” “d,” “ck”
    • Line 18: “th,” “th,” “th,” “th,” “pp,” “p”
    • Line 19: “n”
    • Line 20: “n,” “n,” “th,” “n,” “th”
    • Line 21: “n”

  • Enjambment

    

    

    

    

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    Where enjambment appears in the poem:

    • Line 2: “blades”
    • Line 3: “as”
    • Line 5: “blown”
    • Line 6: “and”
    • Line 7: “white”
    • Line 8: “across”
    • Line 11: “happened”
    • Line 12: “like”
    • Line 15: “dance-macabre”
    • Line 16: “in”
    • Line 17: “angle”
    • Line 18: “and”
    • Line 19: “sung”
    • Line 20: “have”

  • Metaphor

    

    

    

    

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    Where metaphor appears in the poem:

    • Lines 4-6: “A chit of bone, the china plate of a shoulder blade, / the relic of a finger, the blown / and broken bird’s egg of a skull,”
    • Line 9: “nesting machine guns”
    • Line 10: “the earth stands sentinel”
    • Line 11: “reaching back into itself for reminders of what happened”
    • Line 14: “a broken mosaic of bone”
    • Line 15: “their skeletons paused mid dance-macabre”

  • Personification

    

    

    

    

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    Where personification appears in the poem:

    • Lines 10-12: “And even now the earth stands sentinel, / reaching back into itself for reminders of what happened / like a wound working a foreign body to the surface of the skin.”

  • Pun

    

    

    

    

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    Where pun appears in the poem:

    • Line 3: “tended”
    • Line 12: “foreign body”

  • Simile

    

    

    

    

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    Where simile appears in the poem:

    • Line 12: “like a wound working a foreign body to the surface of the skin.”
    • Line 19: “As if”
    • Lines 19-21: “ the notes they had sung / have only now, with this unearthing, / slipped from their absent tongues.”

• “Mametz Wood” Vocabulary

  Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

  • Wasted Young
  • Plough Blades
  • Tended
  • Chit
  • Flint
  • Sentinel
  • Foreign Body
  • Mosaic
  • Dance-Macabre
  • Socketed
  • (Location in poem: Line 2: “wasted young”)

• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Mametz Wood”

  • Form

  • Meter

  • Rhyme Scheme

• “Mametz Wood” Speaker

• “Mametz Wood” Setting

• Literary and Historical Context of “Mametz Wood”

• More “Mametz Wood” Resources

  • External Resources

    • Sheers's Inspiration — A short clip about a documentary that Sheers was involved in which focused on Welsh World War 1 poet David Jones. 

    • The Welsh and WWI — A documentary about the Welsh role in the British Army, as well as the Mametz Wood conflict itself. 

    • David Jones's "In Parenthesis" — An excerpt from an epic poem by David Jones, a Welsh war poet who fought in the Mametz Wood conflict and whose poetry inspired Sheers.

    • Poems of the First World War — A valuable resource of WWI poetry selected by the Poetry Foundation.

    • An Interview with Sheers — The poet talks about his life and work.  

  • LitCharts on Other Poems by Owen Sheers

    • Winter Swans

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