Laureate's first poem is Last Post to bring dead home

Carol Ann Duffy has honoured the dead of the First World War in her first published work as Poet Laureate.

She uses Wilfred Owen's Dulce Et Decorum Est as the inspiration for a work called Last Post, which imagines time being reversed so the dead of the war live again.

The poem was in part created with the Afghanistan conflict in mind and also in honour of the war poets, who include Owen, Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon.

"These poets who were also soldiers did not glorify war but responded to it," Duffy said.

"Whether we are women or men, soldiers or non-soldiers, we should all contribute a voice to the tragedy that is war. I have been thinking about Afghanistan and trying to enthuse new war poetry."

Last Post envisages the dead of the trenches rising, shaking the mud from themselves and queuing up to return home.

It twists Owen's line dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, which translates loosely as "it is glorious and fitting to die for one's country", to say the opposite: "Dulce - No - Decorum - No - Pro patria mori."