Library News

Exam Period in the Library 

During the exam period students are encouraged to attend school for exams only due to limited space in the library.

For Year 11 students that is Thursday 16 November to Thursday 23 November  

For Year 9 and 10 students exams run from  Monday 20 November to Thursday 23 November.

Library News 

Currently, the library has a collection of history books on display to commemorate Remembrance Day which is memorialized on the 11th November every year.  Below is a poem by the poet and soldier William Owen, killed in action tragically one week before Armistice (the end of the war) at the age of 25. He left a legacy of poems that captured the unimaginable horrors of World War 1 that were in stark contrast to public perception of war at the time due to government censored war correspondence and patriotic propaganda, verse and art.

One of his finest works “Anthem for Doomed Youth” was written by Owen while recovering from the trauma of battle.  The poem makes a clear statement: war is a hellish and futile waste of human life.

Anthem for Doomed Youth

By Wilfred Owen

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

— Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Attribution: The Poems of Wilfred Owen, edited by Jon Stallworthy (W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1986)  Call Number: 821 OWE.

Book Club

The last Book Club meeting for the year will be held on Thursday 30 November – to discuss the mystery novel Retro by Sofía Lapuente and Jarrod Shusterman and Sorcery of Thorns a fantasy novel by Margaret Rogerson.  

Students are welcome to drop by the library or email library@mgsc.vic.edu.au to add their name to the Book Club mailing lists. 

The Library Team