Poetry Under Fire – What Poems Did During the First World War: 2025 Dennis Showalter Memorial Lecture

This is a redrafted version of Julia Ribeiro Thomaz’s Dennis Showalter Memorial Lecture, originally delivered at Edinburgh Napier University’s Craiglockhart Campus in November 2025. Drawing upon the author’s doctoral thesis and subsequent book Poésie sous le feu (2026), it considers a new corpus of war poets to interrogate not what is a good or bad war poem nor what war poems say about the war, but rather the social and cultural functions accomplished by poetry in 1914–1918. Furthermore, it explores how the expansion of our definition of war poetry allows us to ask new questions about the First World War, as well as future possibilities to continue broadening our understanding of what war poetry was. The Dennis Showalter Memorial Lecture is an honour awarded annually to an outstanding emerging scholar in First World War Studies by the International Society for First World War Studies. Dennis was a founding member of the Society, a long-time member of the Board of Directors, and a member of the Editorial Board for the Society’s journal. He was unwavering in his support of the Society’s commitment to bringing together emerging and established scholars in the field of First World War Studies. In awarding the 2025 Dennis Showalter Memorial Lecture prize to Julia Ribeiro Thomaz, the Society’s Awards Committee commended her for outstanding contributions to the study of First World War poetry and French cultural history, substantial engagement with and contributions to the Society and its events, as well as to the activities of other organisations.