Alice Oswald: Memorial, Barbican Centre

Memorial by T.S. Eliot Prize-winning poet Alice Oswald is a strikingly original reimagining of Homer's Illiad, combining poetry and classics to pay tribute to each and every soldier named in Homer's text. Instead of the epic narrative, Oswald memorialises and laments the dead.

Drawing on the ancient tradition of oratory, this contemporary poem was composed to be spoken aloud. The words will be accented with music and physical theatre in Blink Productions' stage adaptation of Memorial, which comes to the Barbican Theatre for a blink-and-you'll-miss-it run in September.

Australian actor Helen Morse will perform the poem as a monologue, on stage filled with a chorus of men and women representing the 215 soldiers named in the text. Jocelyn Pook's original score will accompany and punctuate the verse, drawing together music and vocals from sopranos, tenors and cellists in an eclectic combination of genres.

Memorial premieres at the Barbican as part of the 14 –18 NOW, a nation-wide arts programme for the First World War centenary.