Poet laureate writes sonnet for Danny Boyle's Armistice Day centenary events

The Wound in Time by Carol Ann Duffy was written for commemorations being led by the director at beaches around the UK and Ireland

A new poem by Carol Ann Duffy, a sonnet in which the poet laureate mourns the “wound in Time” left by the first world war, will be read aloud on beaches on Armistice Day as part of a nationwide gesture of remembrance for next month’s centenary.

The poem, published on Monday, was commissioned by the director and producer Danny Boyle as part of his commemoration of Armistice Day, Pages of the Sea, which will see thousands of people gathering on beaches in the UK and the Republic of Ireland at low tide on 11 November. As well as readings of Duffy’s poem, the event will see the portrait of a casualty from the war, designed by sand artists Sand in Your Eye, drawn into the sand on beaches around the country, until it is washed away by the tide.