Just uploaded: a new article discussing the association between ‘Poet of the Poor’ Wilfrid Gibson, and Sylvia Pankhurst’s socialist feminist paper The Woman’s Dreadnought. The connection illustrates the interwoven social, political and cultural networks of the time, and how for Gibson, poetry was a form of activism. His work was amongst the many different ways … Continue reading New in June 2026: Dreadnoughts: Wilfrid Gibson, Sylvia Pankhurst and The Woman’s Dreadnought →
2026 Between 1914 and 1921, work by poet Wilfrid Gibson appeared in Sylvia Pankhurst’s socialist feminist paper the Woman’s Dreadnought. Their association throws light on the interwoven social, political and cultural networks of the time, and on Gibson’s commitment to ‘Art for Life’s Sake’: poetry as a form of activism.
Reminding us that the horrors of war extend far beyond the battlefield, Wilfrid Gibson’s poem ‘Katherine Veitch’ tells of a mother driven to madness by the loss of her son at the battle of Loos in 1915. Gibson, one of the first poets to write about World War 1, had previously described soldiers with shell-shock; … Continue reading A Poem for Armistice Day 2025: Katherine Veitch by Wilfrid Gibson →
2023. British poet Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne contributed to the ferment of new ideas about art, religion, poetry and politics in the early twentieth century. She was a suffragist, socialist and freethinker as well as a poet, and her social networks included artists, feminists, reformers and revolutionaries.
Here are four poems for Armistice Day, by Wilfrid Gibson. Best known for his poems of the First World War, he continued to write about war and its aftermath until the Second World War. For more of his war poems, see Suspense and War Poems Bacchanal (November, 1918) Into the twilight of Trafalgar Square They … Continue reading Wilfrid Gibson poems for Armistice Day, November 2018 →
This weekend sees the final days of an installation, Dazzle at London’s V&A, centred around Wilfrid Gibson’s war poem Suspense. The installation is one of a series inspired by the use of ‘dazzle’ camouflage used to reduce the risks of submarine attacks on shipping in World War One. Suspense draws on Gibson’s own experience of … Continue reading Wilfrid Gibson Dazzles at the V&A with his poem ‘Suspense’ →
Although poet and feminist Elizabeth Gibson (later Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne), was a prolific writer, publishing some forty books of prose and poetry, her work is very difficult to find. As I discovered doing my own research, there is hardly any publicly available information about her. As a step towards remedying this, I have produced two … Continue reading New in June 2018: A selection of poems by Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne, plus biographical information. →
A selection of thirty poems by Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne, written between 1904 and 1913, and selected by Judy Greenway.
Provides some basic information about Elizabeth Gibson, and links to my articles about her. As I continue to research her life and work, new material will be added.
2016. Compares the changing responses to the First World War in the writings of Wilfrid Gibson and his sister and fellow poet Elizabeth Gibson Cheyne. Revised version of article published in Dymock Poets and Friends, No 15.